- — Brewer's Concise Dictionary of Phrase & Fablenote
Weathercock, published in 2003, is the fourth novel by British author Glen Duncan. A bildungsroman of sorts, it follows protagonist Dominic Hood as he matures from young boy to just-about-middle-aged, wrestling with his inner demons along the way. The problem with Dominic is that his inner demons aren't entirely figurative. At least, he doesn't think so. He's not entirely sure.
The Roman Catholic Hood grows up with an awareness that he's not like other people – things that horrify others only turn him on. This is, to put it bluntly, a novel about sex. Faith, love and friendship war with despair, evil and nihilism across the battleground of Dominic's fixation with his own sexual depravity, from Manchester to Manhattan by way of London and Goa. He is torn between keeping the faith, as Badass Preacher Father Ignatius Malone exhorts him to do, and indulging his most horrific desires – a position embodied by the seductive Deborah Black.
Dominic is writing down the story of his life so far for reasons including, but not limited to, the chance of a new life and love with the miserably mysterious Holly and the recent and inexplicable visitations of the ghost of his dead best friend.
Weathercock contains examples of:
- Author Appeal: Religious guilt and musing, of the Catholic variety and not, is common in Glen Duncan novels. This isn't his only novel about the devil. See also the revered love interest lost through the protagonist's own screwup.
- Badass Preacher: Father Ignatius Malone is a soldier of God. Exorcism really takes it out of you, as we see.
- Bondage Is Bad: Mostly averted. Dominic considers satisfying his 'evil' sadistic desires within the BDSM scene, but notes that kink's consensual nature robs him of the unwilling victim he needs to get off.
- Hippie Jesus: Averted – at least for hobo preachers Jim and Jake.Jim: People think “Jesus” and they think mmnaah, some hippy pussy in sandals, right?Kelp: Right.Jake: Right. But those cunts are wrong. Dead wrong, right?
- Oracular Urchin: Gregory Kelp. Much is made of his androgynous good looks, and he tends to come off a bit deep and unfathomable when he's having a prescient moment. His prescience even seems to carry over beyond death.
- Self-Defeating Prophecy: Kelp foresees the train crash that would have killed them all, saving them from that fate; but doing so leads him directly to his own death.
- Vagueness Is Coming: "'Something's going to happen here,' he said."
