There are many questions about the clerical abuse scandal that will continue to await answers as long as those in leadership positions in the major Christian churches have to be dragged reluctantly into acknowledging the extent of their institutions’ culpability. And for the laity in these churches, there is a different but related dilemma: how could this have been going on under our noses without us realising? Or did we, but choose to look away?
Michael Arditti has a reputation for not looking away as a novelist whose focus often falls on religion. His prize-winning Easter in 2000 was unflinching in addressing the many levels of hypocrisy in organised religion around sexuality. And The Choice, his 13th novel, is similarly uncompromising.
