The Sin-Eater: A Breviary

The Sin-Eater: A Breviary

Argyle eased the warm loaf right and left<br />and downed swift gulps of beer and venial sin<br />then lit into the bread now leavened with<br />the corpses's cardinal mischiefs, then he said<br />"Six pence, I'm sorry." and the widow paid him.<br /><br />So opens the unsantioned priesthood of The Sin-Eater: A Breviary - Thomas Lynch's collection of two dozen, twenty-four line poems - a book of hours in the odd life and times of Argyle, the sin-eater. Celtic and druidic, scapegoat and outlier, a fixture in the funerary landscape of former centuries, Argyle's doubt-ridden witness seems entirely relevant to our difficult times. By turns worshipful and irreverent, good-humoried and grim, these poems examine the deeper meanings of Eucharist and grace, forgiveness and faith, atonement and reconciliation.