Author: Graham Greene
This book is about a catholic priest who is living in a part of Mexico that has been under severe persecution. The authorities have killed or driven out all priests, except for any priest willing to renounce their faith, which only one did.
This priest, who is unnamed in the book, but nicknamed “The Whisky Priest” is a broken man, who hates his life and his vocation. He desperately wants to leave, but he always feels a sense of calling when someone is in need to provide them mass, or communion or something, so he ends up never being able to leave as there is always someone in need. He is addicted to a specific type of whisky, and feels ashamed and disgraced with that, among other faults. However, his love and compassion grows during the book as he serves the people in the villages of Mexico where he was sent. He is hunted throughout the book by the authorities who know of him, and seek to put him to death,.
At the end of the story, the priest is caught and put to death. But the book ends with another priest showing up to the village. Indicating the sacrifice of the Whisky priest has inspired others.
The book is ultimately about this Whisky priest dealing with his own shortcomings and sins while he tries to fulfill a sense of duty to being a priest. It grapples with themes like the complex legacy of flawed, but devoted people. Faith and doubt. Suffering and mortality, and redemption.
I thought it was a good book, both in terms of plot, character development, and deep themes. You don’t often find all of those together in one book.