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In Due Season

A Catholic Life

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

The noted author recounts the struggles and triumphs of his search for spiritual meaning in this “exquisite memoir that often reads like a novel” (Publisher’s Weekly).

Acclaimed for his writings on religious belief and spirituality, Paul Wilkes now recounts his lifelong search for God. Starting with his working class upbringing in Cleveland, his story continues through lonely nights in a factory; working his way through college; a surprising confrontation during the Cuban Missile Crisis; a torrid romance on the Indian Ocean; acceptance into an Ivy League school; and entering the “perfect” marriage, which would eventually fail.

A man who seemingly had everything, Wilkes gave it all up to live with the poor. Then, in a dizzying turnabout, he became a person he could hardly recognize—a celebrity author. Spending his summers in the Hamptons, he knew Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, and Kurt Vonnegut, but not himself. He sat at the feet of the Dalai Lama. He was an avowed hedonist. He lived as a hermit at a Trappist monastery. He found true love and ran from it. He was a true son of the Church and a sinner beyond anything he might have imagined.

In Due Season is Paul Wilkes's candid and probing memoir of seeking and getting lost, of abysmal failure and ultimate triumph, with a faith in God battered and tried in the crucible of his life.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from January 12, 2009
      In an exquisite memoir that often reads like a novel, writer Wilkes (In Mysterious Ways: The Death and Life of a Parish Priest
      ) recounts and reflects upon his life as a Catholic. Although his journey includes a decade as a Protestant and ongoing discomfort with certain aspects of Catholicism, Wilkes deftly mines its imagery and its figures, particularly the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, a major and recurring influence. As Wilkes meanders through a life that begins in a working-class Cleveland neighborhood, he candidly relates his passages of sin and saintliness, including a conversion-in-reverse when he gains fame as a writer and an interlude following the end of his first marriage in which he lives among the poor, caring for society's castoffs. Readers will experience his confusion, the “decaying smell of dying soul” and his triumphs as they wonder if the “it” he seeks will find him and whether he will marry again or become a monk. This is fine, engrossing reading for all who appreciate the struggle inherent in the spiritual quest.

    • Library Journal

      March 15, 2009
      Longtime freelance writer and reporter Wilkes may be best known for his 1976 PBS documentary "Six American Families" and books on the contemporary American Catholic church (e.g., "Excellent Catholic Parishes"). Here, he describes his traditional Catholic upbringing in Cleveland and departure from it, naval-officer service, study at Columbia's journalism school, a failed marriage to a Methodist missionary, and his attempts to find spiritual meaning through community service in Brooklyn, NY. He became conflicted about his lifestyle when writing success led him to contact with celebrities and drinking and drugs. His accounts of attempting to find balance through periodic stays in monasteries reflect a changing American society. Wilkes eventually found joy and stability as a husband and father in a second marriage. He details how he finds fulfillment in hospital lay ministry and selective church teachings, and he analyzes himself spiritually with frequent dramatic verboseness. Recommended for religion collections to represent current lay perceptions on seeking the divine.Anna M. Donnelly, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NY

      Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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  • English

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