{"product_id":"the-life-you-save-may-be-your-own-an-american-pilgrimage-9780374529215","title":"The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage","description":"\u003ch2\u003eThe Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe story of four modern American Catholics who made literature out of their search for God\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the mid-twentieth century four American Catholics came to believe that the best way to explore the questions of religious faith was to write about them—in works that readers of all kinds could admire. \u003ci\u003eThe Life You Save May Be Your Own\u003c\/i\u003e is their story—a vivid and enthralling account of great writers and their power over us.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThomas Merton was a Trappist monk in Kentucky; Dorothy Day the founder of the Catholic Worker in New York; Flannery O'Connor a \"Christ-haunted\" literary prodigy in Georgia; Walker Percy a doctor in New Orleans who quit medicine to write fiction and philosophy. A friend came up with a name for them—the School of the Holy Ghost—and for three decades they exchanged letters, ardently read one another's books, and grappled with what one of them called a \"predicament shared in common.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eA Literary Pilgrimage Through American Catholic Experience\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA pilgrimage is a journey taken in light of a story; and in \u003ci\u003eThe Life You Save May Be Your Own\u003c\/i\u003e Paul Elie tells these writers' story as a pilgrimage from the God-obsessed literary past of Dante and Dostoevsky out into the thrilling chaos of postwar American life. It is a story of how the Catholic faith, in their vision of things, took on forms the faithful could not have anticipated. And it is a story about the ways we look to great books and writers to help us make sense of our experience, about the power of literature to change—to save—our lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eAward-Winning Religious Biography\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis National Book Critics Circle award finalist and PEN\/Martha Albrand Prize recipient offers readers an intimate look at four towering figures who shaped American Catholic literature. Through meticulous research and compelling narrative, Elie weaves together the lives of writers who transformed religious experience into literary art.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePaul Elie\u003c\/b\u003e, for many years a senior editor with FSG, is now a senior fellow with Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. His first book, \u003ci\u003eThe Life You Save May Be Your Own\u003c\/i\u003e, received the PEN\/Martha Albrand Prize and was a National Book Critics Circle award finalist. He lives in New York City.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50680560320786,"sku":"9780374529215","price":19.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_6b58c065-c203-41b0-bbe0-c1bbe09ccc9c.jpg?v=1748519238","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-life-you-save-may-be-your-own-an-american-pilgrimage-9780374529215","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}