James Hart “Hootie” McCown didn’t just have an amazing nickname. He was one of Flannery O’Connor’s best friends and spiritual advisors.
Catholic Book Club
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
‘Death of a Salesman’ turns 75. And we’re still haunted by Willy Loman.
Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” which turns 75 this year, was a huge hit by any commercial or critical standard. In 1949, it pulled off an unprecedented trifecta, winning the New York Drama Circle Critics’ Award, the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. So attention must be paid!
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Elizabeth Cullinan, the ‘criminally under-read’ bard of the Bronx Irish
Elizabeth Cullinan’s literary output was not prodigious—but her memorable characters and close attention to the Irish-American culture in which she lived made her a prominent fiction writer in the ’70s and ’80s.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Gerhard Lohfink on Jesus, discipleship and the life of faith
Gerhard Lohfink, who died last week in his native Germany at the age of 89, leaves behind an impressive legacy of faith-informed scholarship on the New Testament and Christian discipleship.
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Jacques Maritain’s life of writing on politics, liturgy and St. Thomas Aquinas
“It is not easy to be a Catholic, and it is not easy to be a writer. To be a Catholic writer is doubly difficult,” wrote Jacques Maritain, who nevertheless became one of the most influential 20th-century Catholic writers on either side of the Atlantic.
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The sometimes-savage perfection of Catholic parody
Parody, Ernest Hemingway said, is a step up from writing on the wall above the urinal. He was wrong.
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Baseball, Brooklyn and Seoul: It’s finally time for Opening Day.
Opening Day is a reminder that there are, to quote Bill Veeck, only two seasons: winter and baseball.
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Father Pedro Arrupe: a controversial Jesuit’s bumpy path to sainthood
Pedro Arrupe, S.J., is well on the path to sainthood. So who was he? And why do people have such strong opinions about him?
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‘There goes the jugular’: Wilfrid Sheed and the art of literary criticism
Wilfrid Sheed’s books are a delight to read, but his reviews and essays are his true masterpieces.
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Robert Giroux: the Catholic bookman who edited Merton (and Flannery and Percy and Kerouac)
Robert Giroux edited some of the 20th century’s leading writers, including some prominent Catholic voices like Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy and Thomas Merton.