The reader can see God in all areas of Toni Morrison’s characters’ circumstances—in the “magic,” in the pain and suffering, and in the call to healing and wholeness that leads to life.
Books
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Review: Catholics and religious liberty in early American history
If Catholics wanted to be tolerated in the early years of the Maryland Colony, they had to prove their loyalty—first to the Stuarts, then to Parliament, then the House of Hanover and then the fledgling American republic.
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Review: Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the vocation of the poet
Neeli Cherkovski’s expanded edition of his biography of Lawrence Ferlinghetti is a book by “a poet who set out to celebrate another poet.”
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Review: Hip-hop’s divine blend of poetry, song and story
Alejandro Nava begins his formal analysis by situating hip-hop as something that “recovers the oral, rhythmic, and melodic nature of ancient scriptural transmission.”
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Something for everyone: Welcome to Spring Books 2022
America’s spring 2022 literary issue has a little bit of something for everyone—including the historian in each of us.
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Review: Is it high time to reconsider our drug policies?
A Columbia professor comes clean about his casual drug use—and thinks the rest of us should think more about harm reduction than eradication when it comes to addictive substances.
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Christopher Beha left the Catholic church and then came back. Now he’s writing a book about why.
Novelist and editor Christopher Beha discusses faith, writing and great literature with Mary Grace Mangano.
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‘Talking Back to Dante’: A tribute in verse
Writing in honor of Dante and in conversation with him, Angela O’Donnell recognizes the enormous impact his imagination had on our worldview.
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How Catholic Was Gustave Flaubert?
Gustave Flaubert’s prose reflects a lifetime of grappling with religious and spiritual themes. He saw his Catholicism as a singular form of asceticism, allied to his vocation as a writer.
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In an age of insurrections and culture wars, Joyce and Faulkner are increasingly relevant
Faulkner’s Southern twist on Joycean modernism has made for popular reading in the wake of the U.S. Capitol insurrection and other spasms of red-state rage.