The simultaneous pull of love and sadness is pure Cheever and permeates his Christmas story.
Books
Posted inFaith, Features
A pregnant pause: Mary and the Annunciation
Fewer than 200 words are attributed to Mary in Scripture, but those words have inspired innumerable prayers, hymns, sermons and other devotional practices, perhaps none more than her words at the Annunciation.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: The roots of American conservatism
William F. Buckley Jr. was more than a prolific writer: He was the brains and coalescing force of a post-World War II philosophy that gradually became known as “conservatism” and which culminated with the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan as president.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Andre Dubus’s challenging but beautifully written stories have been reissued
Dubus was an irascible, loyal, loving, smoking, hard-drinking, hard-punching, tender man, who demanded much of himself and others.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: ‘Refuge in Hell’ is a Dante-esque journey into our prison system
Nowhere is the contrast between Christian love and hellish indifference more stark than in our prison system.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Real news about the Trump White House
Bob Woodward offers a grim portrait of a presidential administration that seems increasingly unhinged.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
R. O. Kwon’s debut novel delves into the loss of faith and the absence it leaves behind
R. O. Kwon’s novel startles and unsettles with its insights, as its characters act to prove their beliefs to themselves and to the world, with explosive results.
Posted inArts & Culture, Ideas
The Evolution of René Girard
How one man made us think differently about religion, violence and desire
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Machado de Assis, the ‘writer’s Catholic writer’
The stories of Machado de Assis let us imagine our way into familiar perspectives and situations from unexpected vantages that enlarge and transform our sense of what is and what can be in this life, and the next.
Posted inArts & Culture, Ideas
Stan Lee showed us nerds (and Catholics) can be heroes
As wild and wonderful as Marvel Comics characters’ superpowers might be, their back stories are always grounded in reality.