Colman McCarthy, who died on Feb. 27 at the age of 87, had a well-deserved reputation for seeking out the underdogs in life—as well as for his determined lifelong stands against war, capital punishment, homelessness and the other seamy sides of contemporary capitalism.
Books
Posted inTheater
Separating the art from the artist? Broadway’s ‘Giant’ wrestles with Roald Dahl’s antisemitism
The tragedy of Dahl’s antisemitism isn’t that it colored his art but that it clouded his vision and tainted his outrage.
Posted inBooks
Review: Thomas More, God’s good servant
Joanne Paul wrote her powerful and considerable biography of Thomas More because she finds More’s life relevant to today’s world. But the book also addresses another question: Was More a saintly martyr or a vicious murderer?
Posted inBooks
Review: Seeking a healthy planet and a healthy church
In Christina Rivera’s new collection, we wander through waves of connections, an ebb and flow carrying us between climate change, the sixth extinction, motherhood, all kinds of oceans and personal challenges—including the writer’s desire to leave the Catholic Church she was raised in.
Posted inBooks
Review: A Jesuit high school whodunit
Anna Bruno’s ‘Fine Young People,’ set at St. Ignatius, an elite Jesuit high school in a Pittsburgh suburb, operates as a whodunit on multiple levels simultaneously.
Posted inBooks
Review: Parables of a Greenland priest
Henrik Pontoppidan’s ‘The White Bear’ gives us two novellas that work in conversation with each other. Both feature burly, uncouth protagonists who endure episodes of childhood trauma and develop a fiercely independent way of engaging with the world.
Posted inBooks
Review: Molly McNett and making the unsayable sayable
Molly McNett’s ‘Child of These Tears’ displays the difficulties of translation, the irreducibility of meaning, and the frustrating limitations of human nature and society.
Posted inBooks
Review: Bennett Cerf, Random House co-founder and superstar editor
Gayle Feldman’s new biography of Bennett Cerf, ‘Nothing Random,’ is a window into the past of American literary culture.
Posted inCatholic Book Club
Remembering Bill Burrows: a scholar who supported—and critiqued—the Catholic missionary movement
When William R. Burrows died last week, many a theologian and missionary remembered him as an important voice—and a valuable intellectual support for many decades—for his work in publishing and promoting works in the study of mission.
Posted inBooks
Sheed & Ward: the unlikely power couple who revolutionized Catholic publishing
As readers mark the centennial of the Sheed & Ward publishing house, we celebrate what “the Sheedwardians”—as that unlikely Catholic power couple sometimes called themselves—meant back in their heyday.