A Whispered Name - William Brodrick

Brodrick’s latest novel finds another investigation worthy of the ability and insight of Brother Anselm, a monk previously trained as a lawyer. It’s an understanding of not only the law but the deeper motivations of the human spirit that is required in A Whispered Name, and what greater mystery could there be than the personal events and upheavals endured by young men and boys under the command of unfathomable laws in the trenches of WWI?

A mysterious visitor to the Larkwood monastery reveals and unknown aspect to the life of one of its oldest inhabitants, the founder of the monastery itself, Fr. Herbert Moore and his part in the sentencing of a young Irishman, Private Joseph Flanagan, charged with desertion during the battle for Passchendaele in 1917. Fr Moore however is now dead, leaving the events and incomplete accounts of the incident shrouded in secrecy. What drove a young Irishman to fight alongside the English? Why did he risk an unknown, perhaps personal mission that could see him dishonoured and shot for desertion? And why are the pages of his trial containing the final judgement incomplete?

Caught up in complicated military legal procedures, the events distorted by unreliable and incomplete accounts, Anselm’s investigation seems to be an impossible one, “looking for meaning in the one place it cannot be found”. Yet this is precisely the strength of Brodrick’s work. The writing is again brilliant, the author masterfully creating the conditions of the WWI trenches, but more than that, capturing the deeper complexities of memory and human behaviour caught up in exceptional circumstances.

If there could be one minor quibble, it’s in the actual account of what occurred remaining one step ahead of Anselm’s investigations, the story drawn out at length as he gradually puts together the pieces of the puzzle. But yet again with Brodrick, it’s the process of discovery that is just as important as its revelation. Anselm’s role is an important one that few are as well placed to approach as that of the lawyer-monk - to give testimony to a terrible incident in one of the darkest chapters of modern history, honour the memory in the present day, and fulfil the role of “tending a fire that won’t go out”. Brodrick’s great ability is to turn this into a profoundly moving human and spiritual experience.

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