The Many Colored Coat

by Morley Callaghan

ISBN 0771597150. lAURENTIAN lIBRARY 12

318 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Edward Morley Callaghan was a Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and TV and radio personality.

Reviews

[Tom Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a novel about absolutes or rather the convictions that drive people to believe in the efficacy of absolutes and the harm that that causes. Mike Kon believes that Harry Lane is undoubtedly guilty and Scotty Bowman is innocent. Harry Lane believes that Scotty Bowman is guilty and that he, Harry Lane, is undoubtedly innocent. These are absolute convictions. They allow for no nuance.. And that prevents each of them from truly understanding the issue that there are no absolutes. Nothing is certain.

This is teh issue that the novel works through. It is indeed appropriate to today since it reflects on the degree of partisanship that marks today's politics. Someone who is in disagreement with someone else does not act in good faith according to today's attitudes. Thy must be acting in bad faith and to some self-advantage. There is no nuance and there is no way to resolution. The novel puts this in the words of a priest as the sin of pride. If I am correct that the other must be wrong. if I am virtuous then the other must be evil. There is no other way.

[JoAnne Waters · Rating 3 out of 5]

"he wondered if it was true that he belonged among that host of terrible men of old who walked in wounded righteousness demanding the vengeance of the Lord on those who had wounded them." Page 313

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Callaghan was one of the few Canadian writers from the first half of the 20th century that wrote characters with a true grittiness. Often characters with dangerous intonations could be written well, Frederick Philip Grove and High MacLennan come to mind, but these characters often represented the bad and would have bad thing done to them as reperations...Callaghan was point with many of his American contemporaries, writing noir-esque styles where the lines of morality are not as certain.