Fifth Business

Fifth Business is a 1970 novel by Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor Robertson Davies. It is the first installment of the Deptford Trilogy and is a story of the life of the narrator, Dunstan Ramsay. It is Davies' best-known novel, and considered his finest. First published by Macmillan of Canada in 1970, Fifth Business was selected 40th on the American Modern Library's "reader's list" of the 100 best novels of the 20th century. Ramsay's passion for hagiology and his guilty connection to Mary Dempster provide most of the impetus and background for this novel. He spends much of the book struggling with his image of Mary Dempster as a fool-saint and dealing with issues of guilt that grew from a childhood...