Just so we’re clear, she said, I know the rules of confession. What I say cannot be repeated. Not to anyone…

When Mack O’Brien left his home in Port Talbot for the seminary as a teenager, he didn’t imagine he’d be back a decade later, unordained and still at a loss as to what makes for a moral life. He takes a job as a security guard at the local steelworks and begins an uneasy transition into the world he once rejected. When the men of the steelworks organise an unprecedented strike in protest against job cuts, he sees no reason not to go along with it.

The last person Mack expects to see in the local club is Siwan Roderick – the woman who appeared out of the blue at the seminary one day to make a confession and swear him to secrecy. Mack kept his word. But as the day of the strike nears, and as he begins to fully understand what

Siwan is planning, Mack is forced to reckon with his loyalty to her and the question of whether an act of violence can ever be justified.

About the author…
Jon Doyle is a writer based in Port Talbot, South Wales. He was part of Literature Wales’ Representing Wales scheme in 2022/23, and won the Writers & Artists Working-Class Writers’ Prize 2023. He holds a BSc and MRes in Zoology and MA in Creative Writing from Cardiff University, and a PhD in Creative Writing from Swansea University. His work has appeared in ‘Short Fiction,’ ‘Hobart,’ ‘Ploughshares Online,’ ‘The Rumpus,’ ‘3:AM Magazine,’ ‘Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction’ among other places. He has been named as one of ‘the Observer’s’ debut novelists of the year 2026. ‘Communion’ is his first novel.

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