Monk Dawson, is a novel by English author Piers Paul Read, published in 1969 by Secker and Warburg in the UK and in 1970 by Lippincott in the US, the year it won both the Somerset Maugham Award and Hawthornden Prize.

[1] It tells the story of Edward Dawson through the words of his friend Robert Winterman.

Edward vows to devote his life to helping people and comes to believe that entering the priesthood to be the best way to fulfil this ambition and stays on at Kirkham, becoming Father John.

The Second Vatican Council called by Pope John XXIII has considerable impact on Dawson, who was caught up in reformist zeal; which led to his leaving the monastery and moving into the secular clergy.

But the enigmatic ex-monk finds solace in recently widowed Jenny, one of the women he helped as a priest, and moves in with her...