A violent assault on a famous author revives an ugly history: the fatwa against Salman Rushdie.
Catholic Book Club
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Look back: America magazine’s love affair with J.F.K.
America’s editors shy away from endorsing political candidates—but J.F.K. proved a hard case, both during his life and in the decades since.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Parish priest, sociologist, novelist: The many imaginations of Father Andrew Greeley
The Rev. Andrew Greeley had an enormous impact on the American Catholic Church—including through his many contributions to this magazine.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Joan Didion, Wendell Berry, Sally Rooney: Summer review for the Catholic Book Club
A very sunburned literary editor looks back on some Catholic Book Club columns of yore.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
We live in the age of anti-heroes. But few can top John Kennedy Toole’s Ignatius J. Reilly.
John Kennedy Toole’s only novel was published after his death—but quickly became a classic of American comic fiction.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Alice McDermott and the Brooklyn Irish Catholic community that inspired her writing
In her eight novels and many short stories, Alice McDermott has brought a distinctly Catholic imagination to her fiction—but not in the same way as her forebears.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
The greatest American Jesuit you’ve probably never heard of
One of the great Catholic thinkers of 20th-century America is too often overlooked: William F. Lynch, S.J.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Lessons from John Courtney Murray for a country divided on abortion—and just about everything else
Noted primarily for his work on religious liberty, John Courtney Murray, S.J., provided much of the basis for theological and political reflection on the relationship between church and state on these shores through his voluminous writings.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Andre Dubus on prayer and parental love
Andre Dubus wrote short stories and novellas about the brutal truths and miraculous moments in life—and more than a few dealt with the joys and sorrows of fatherhood.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
A man for all seasons: Fay Vincent, baseball and America
When Fay Vincent Jr. resigned as the commissioner of Major League Baseball, he turned to the pages of “America” in his effort “to try to put all of the current mess in perspective.”