A review by Shane Joseph<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cDo not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God\u201d \u2013 Exodus 34:14<\/em><\/p>\n The theme of this Biblical line echoes throughout Ben Antao\u2019s latest novel, as protagonist Sebastian Lobo, an ex-priest, agonizes between the call of God, the call of his loins, and the damage that those two forces can commit on mankind when they get intertwined and conflicted.<\/p>\n Lobo flees the priesthood due to corruption in the Church, becomes an investigative journalist in Goa and Bombay, drinks, frequents prostitutes and tries desperately to stifle his bi-sexual instincts. He travels to Canada to cover Expo 67, falls in love during the flower power and free love era in North America but is drawn back to complete that \u201cunfinished business\u2019 back home. Through this tightly woven storyline, Antao brings us into the world of the tormented priest \u2013 one who is strong-willed in places, then weak, then lost, then damned, again revived and placed on the redemption trail, only to be brutally shoved back into a private hell for having abandoned God in the beginning. Much of the narrative takes place in Lobo\u2019s head and he is isolated from people because every time he opens his mouth to have a discussion, he seems to be drawn back to his pre-occupation with God and the Church.<\/p>\n I think that Antao is bold to take on the Catholic Church for their now publicly known sexual misdeeds; at the same time he hedges his bet in having his renegade priest get his comeuppance for having transgressed his holy vows.<\/p>\n Writing about metaphysical manifestations in novels is okay as long as they are presented through the lenses of certain characters, I think. When Antao brings in those creepy crawly demons into straight narrative sections (prologue and epilogue) or when Sandra, Lobo\u2019s Canadian girlfriend and an atheist, also wakes up to see Lobo\u2019s nemesis, the God-light, illuminating their bedroom and hears the same ghostly voice that repeatedly tells Lobo \u201cI love you\u201d, I think we as readers are being forced into a belief frame that we may not all buy into. It shifted the focus for me from literary fiction into another genre that I find difficult to classify. I would rather Antao have kept the demons and God-voices with Lobo himself and not intruded with his own authorial, moralistic scene-painting.<\/p>\n That said, Antao gives us nostalgic and vivid descriptions of Canada in the 60s when prospective immigrants had to be coaxed to reside here rather than have to go through the act of \u201cgetting through the eye of the needle\u201d that it is today, when sex had no stigma of AIDS, and when the Toronto Zoo was not in its present location. There are also detailed descriptions of the ordination process for priests, vivid images of Old Goa, and of Bombay when it had only four million residents. And of course, there is always the sex…<\/p>\n The writing is fluid, the scenes move fast and I was able to read this book in a couple of sittings. Given Antao\u2019s prolific output in recent years, I am awaiting his next book.<\/p>\n (The above review appeared on Goodreads website in September 2009. Shane Joseph is a Canadian fiction writer whose latest novel is The Ulysses Man.)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sex and faith clash in Ben Antao\u2019s latest novel A review by Shane Joseph \u201cDo not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God\u201d \u2013 Exodus 34:14 The theme of this Biblical line echoes throughout Ben Antao\u2019s latest novel, as protagonist Sebastian Lobo, an ex-priest, agonizes between the … Continue reading The Priest and His Karma<\/span>