BOOK REVIEW-Barabus by S.J. Fowler

So far a unique way for me to discover a book - from a link in the footer of an email sent to me by the author; the title caught my eye. Unlike the novel with a similar name by Pär Lagerkvist, this isn’t a story about the man who was expecting to be crucified until Jesus took his place on the cross. But both seem to offer rich points of reflection on matters central to our faith.

The life-saver in this novel is an unnamed paramedic. Such is the depth of the honest and sometimes uncomfortable detail, I wondered if the author had direct experience as a first responder?
Arranged as a series of short scenes offering glimpses of life as a paramedic and written in the first person, there is a journal quality to the text. Each short entry builds slowly into an exploration of judgement, compassion, guilt and the cost of caring for those who suffer. The witty one- or two-word titles are a reminder of how apparently insignificant words or details can acquire meaning as each scene unfolds - how these memories can trigger both joy and consolation, trauma and wholeness.

Often those who care for others find it hard to care for themselves. This short novel offers a glimpse into the mind of someone who, like many in a similar role, can find it hard to talk about the effect of their work on their own lives. As such perhaps it might be a useful text for anyone exploring a pastoral role or those who want to understand more deeply the reality of such work. There are obvious differences between a priest and a paramedic but this novel offers striking parallels between the two.

In one of the scenes the paramedic remarks: “Very few people are needed as I am needed” and goes on to reflect where he is in that moment of need. Could “he” - the needed one - be anyone with the necessary skills? Where is he when that moment of need is over? What follows is a succinct and eloquent snapshot of the questions about identity and professional boundaries that many in similar roles ask themselves repeatedly.

Our hero often ponders whether he did or said the right thing. The book exposes the apparent equality of trauma - a “killer driver” and those he injured all receiving the same care - but also makes plain the power in such situations vested in the first responder: where to devote their time and attention? There are no easy answers here, but that is the point. This is a novel that does not shy away from the complexities of life and death.

There are several intriguing meditations on what we choose to record about a life. The sparse, factual language of medical records is expanded by entries in the narrator’s ad hoc private diary. Both are selective in different ways. A reminder that even when writing only for ourselves we choose what we consider worthy of remembrance and what we can bear to remember.

The novel refuses to idealise its narrator. One scene finds him confronting the temptation to steal items from the home of a dead person. Revulsion on the part of the reader gives way to the realisation that we too could potentially be tempted to do the same - or at least understand how he was tempted. The line between acceptable and unacceptable moral behaviour is not as wide as we think.

At the same time we are confronted with the question of how we respond when those we admire or place on a pedestal are found to be flawed and broken.

Towards the end of the novel, the narrator resigns from his job before it kills him: he walks away from saving people in order to save himself. A reminder both that there are limits to what one person can carry - and that, like the biblical Barabbas who walks free while Christ goes to the cross, those who save lives are, like all of us, recipients of salvation rather than its source.

Barabas by S.J.Fowler was published by Tenement Press in 2026.