praise for monday rent boy
“Susan Doherty brilliantly brings to life the soaring, simple joy of childhood, even as she guides us fearlessly and fascinatingly into the origins of the dark web. Monday Rent Boy is a compelling page-turner, a sensitive yet stark portrait of crimes against childhood, and ultimately a triumphant testament to the healing power of friendship.”—Ann-Marie MacDonald, award-winning author of Fayne
“This unflinching yet incredibly gentle depiction of the experience of two boys abused in the Catholic Church brings to life a tragedy - global in scope - that began as unspeakable acts committed against one child after another. A stunning, literary take on a dark, heartbreaking slice of humanity.”—Carrie Mac, bestselling author of Last Winter“
“If fools rush in where angels fear to tread, then Susan Doherty is the holiest of fools. Her haunting, brave, brilliantly realized work exposes with a nuanced compassion the devastating effects of the ‘dark web’ that is pedophilia. Only radical love can counter radical evil, and this extraordinary book lights the way.”—James FitzGerald, award-winning author of What Disturbs Our Blood
“Monday Rent Boy is a masterfully wrought novel that goes to some very dark places—secluded church vestries, locked basements, the murkiest corners of child exploitation. But Susan Doherty, armed with a belief in the inherent value of truth-telling, stares down every horror. Like her characters Arthur and Ernie—fending for themselves and each other against seemingly insuperable odds—her writing holds out hope.”—Ian McGillis, journalist and author of A Tourist’s Guide to Glengarry
“A searing novel that cuts painfully close to the truth: the vulnerability of children, the sly grooming by sexual predators, the guilt, the fearful silence and the buried secrets of the victims—and how the Internet made all of this a multi-million-dollar business. This book will shock, scare and anger you—all the more so because it is all too real.”—Julian Sher, author of One Child at a Time: The Global Fight to Rescue Children from Online Predators
POWER IN THE BROKEN PLACES
Institutions with a power structure that have covered up, and therefore allowed leading members to abuse the vulnerable have contributed to the rise in online pornography and predation on the dark net. I have chosen the Catholic Church to tell my story, but equally culpable are hierarchies like the Boys Scouts, private schools, and Hollywood.
Spiritual abuse happens when a person with spiritual authority or power uses it as leverage to exploit another person’s trust and vulnerability to get what they want. Clericalism.
Leaders coerced and manipulated followers. Who are the victims? Women, minorities desperate to assimilate, young innocent children too young to defend themselves, the financially disadvantaged, and anyone with a stark vulnerability have especially suffered from this abuse of power.
Children have been sexually abused.
At eight years of age, Arthur Barnes and Ernie Castlefrank find themselves on the same altar boy rota at St. Nick’s, a situation that readies an unlikely friendship. Father Zipernowski— a pastor referred to as The Zipper, has given both boys a sterling crucifix that marks them as children conditioned to provide sexual favours for clergy members in the counties of Somerset and Avon.
As Ernie and Arthur slip into lives of petty degeneracy; dope-smoking thieves who steal from the collection plate, local shops, parked cars, and department stores in nearby Bristol, they laugh off their inner humiliation without ever speaking publicly, or privately about what has been happening in the vestry.
Arthur’s book-thieving leads to an unlikely partnership with Marina Phillips, the owner of the town bookshop. He has the chance to reinvent himself as a young book critic with eyes to becoming an English major, a professor, and a scholar.
Ernie’s leg-up comes in the form of a pawnshop owner, a man with a desire to profit from the exploitation of children in The Pint Room, a website on the Internet.
What are the circumstances that help one person navigate trauma, versus the factors that may crush another? And have institutions like the church, the Boy Scouts, and private schools fed the rise of online predation on the DarkNet as they scramble to protect their institutions over the health and welfare of vulnerable children?
Monday Rent Boy is a literary mystery about boyhood friendship, family secrecy, shame, divided loyalties, and being a bystander. Above all, it is about resilience, a trait that is learned rather than inherited. No one is born resilient—the capacity to overcome strife and live with purpose—instead, it comes from the presence of at least one stable and committed relationship that provides a scaffolding to buffer a child from developmental destruction.
At the end of the day all trauma, in the right hands, can, perhaps, hopefully, ultimately be a gift.
