Matthew Venn is the dynamic protagonist of The Long Call. He is a Detective Inspector in the Devon police force, and he is married to Jonathan. Matthew grew up near Devon and was raised in a highly religious community called the Barum Brethren. He became estranged from the Brethren—and from his family—when he was unable to reconcile their version of God with his own feelings of faith. While he was once a dreamer who imagined himself “a poet in the making” (4), the estrangement from his community led Matthew to become closed off, and he has become an expert at concealing his emotions. His relationship with Jonathan has begun to bring him out of his shell, and as he notes, “The fear of looking foolish had haunted him all his adult life. It had taken Jonathan to start curing him of that” (279).

Even though Matthew’s relationship with Jonathan has encouraged him to become a more open, expressive person, Matthew is still very guarded, even within his relationship. The guardedness within his marriage comes from his feelings of insecurity about whether he is enough for his husband. Early in their relationship, Matthew had “been certain that Jonathan would find someone more interesting to spend his life with” (75).