The Shadow Doctor (by Adrian Plass)

(Amazon UK link)

The writer Adrian Plass is, in my opinion, extremely versatile. He’s best known, probably, for his satirical ‘Sacred diaries’ books which were very popular in the 1990s. I have read them several times, and still find myself laughing aloud at his self-deprecating and sometimes unexpected humour. 

But he’s also written thought-provoking short stories, some novels about church life, or family relationships. He’s also written articles, shared anecdotes, and explained parts of the Bible in ways that resonate strongly. He avoids cliches, except when poking fun at them. He writes based on his experience, and his imagination, and, I’m increasingly sure, based on promptings from the Holy Spirit. 

And he wrote ‘The Shadow Doctor’ and its sequel, books which are mostly written from the point of view of a young man called Jack who has recently lost his beloved grandmother. He is given a letter which she wrote shortly before she died, and in it she tells him about a man she met whom she just knows as ‘Doc’. Doc met her when she was very depressed, and rescued her in an unexpected way. 

Jack goes to meet Doc, and gets drawn into his apparently random, unstructured and often confusing lifestyle. There’s plenty of good coffee, and Jack finds things to do, but he isn’t really sure why he’s there. 

The first time I read ‘The Shadow Doctor’, I found myself a bit puzzled as to what it was ‘really’ about. Was the Shadow Doctor, like Nunc in ‘An Alien at St Wilfred’s’, an angel in disguise? Or was he, perhaps, going to turn out to be someone malignant - would it be a thriller? The cover of the book looks a little spooky. There’s a byline on the front: ‘He shines new light into darkness and despair - but can he escape his own shadows?’ What, I wondered, did that mean?

The second time I read it, a few years later, before reading the newly published sequel, I had more of an idea where it was going. And re-reading it again just now, I found it all the more thought-provoking, and very moving. Doc avoids all jargon - particularly Christian jargon - and generally avoids answering questions directly. He uses metaphors and hyperbole, and sometimes deliberately misleading statements. 

Doc and Jack are very different in personality. Jack is quite straightforward and literal, and wants clear explanations. He has a history of helping people, although he acknowledges that often he used phrases or concepts that he had been taught, but had never fully taken on board. He likes the way that Doc relates to and helps people, but finds it very hard to see how it happens. Doc talks about listening rather than talking, and going with what he calls ‘the flow’. 

There are some delightful stories about Doc and Jack meeting different people. Some are planned meetings after someone asks for help, and some are apparently chance meetings. Doc treats everybody as if they were the most important person in the world, and tries to hear or observe what they are saying or thinking underneath the words they say. 

In the stories given, it’s evident that he’s listening to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, though he never says it (and Jack doesn’t seem to be aware). But there are no stories about things going wrong, or Doc making major mistakes using this awareness of ‘flow’, so it’s perhaps a little unbalanced. And some of Doc’s pronouncements which make Jack uncomfortable could have traditional Christians up in arms, objecting to what they might see as heresy.

But I loved it. I was caught up in the story, and the interactions, and longing to be able to respond and understand in the ways that Doc does. I imagined him, in appearance, facial expression and voice (though not accent) rather like Peter Capaldi in his role as the 12th Doctor Who. I was a bit surprised, when checking my last review, to discover that I felt the same way back in 2021. 

There are rather a lot of unanswered questions in this book: What exactly is a ‘shadow doctor’? How is he funded? What exactly will Jack’s role be if he decides to join him permanently? Who is George? And how does the phone receptionist Martha fit in? Some of these are covered in the sequel, but the first time I read this first book, I was a tad frustrated at so many open threads. 

Of course this is fiction, and all the situations invented. But the more I read it, the more I take on board some of the principles. I know that Adrian Plass and his wife Bridget still travel a fair amount, and speak at conferences, and retreat centres and so on. It occurred to me as I finished this book that perhaps Adrian himself works with something like Doc’s ‘flow’, when he talks to individuals. That he explains it - albeit in a convoluted manner - suggests that there’s a lot of him in Doc, and that the theories and concepts, in being shown and taught to Jack, are equally being shared with a lot of Christians who are equally stuck in Christianese lists and regulations, rather than stepping out and following Jesus. 

It’s not to everyone’s taste. There's not a lot of plot, and some of the situations and people are a bit stereotyped. Maybe the 'solutions' are too pat.  But if you like Plass's writing, and want something a bit different, I would highly recommend this book. I liked it so much that, while I usually spread out my rereading of each author, I’m going to reread the sequel to ‘The Shadow Doctor’ immediately. 

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