SOURCE: "Religion as Favourite Metaphor: Moore's Recent Fiction," in Irish University Review, Vol. 18, No. 1, Spring, 1988, pp. 50-8.

In the following essay, Gallagher asserts that faith, both secular and religious, enables many of Moore's characters to survive crises.

Searching for a language more honest than lying is the struggle of all spiritual life.

                                        —Jean Sullivan

Although I'm not a religious writer, religion—the Catholic religion—has played a major role in many of my novels … I use religion as a metaphor.

                                        —Brian Moore

At a fairly early stage in The Colour of Blood, Cardinal Bem is allowed by his captors to speak by phone to the "Ministry of Religious Affairs". Although Bem is not aware of it at the time, the voice on the other end is another member of the nationalist faction of Catholics who have kidnapped him in this communist country. Nevertheless he senses the unreality of...