{"product_id":"the-life-you-save-may-be-your-own-an-american-pilgrimage-9781250399144","title":"The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWINNER OF THE PEN\/MARTHA ALBRAND AWARD FOR FIRST NONFICTION\u003cbr\u003eFINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHY\u003cbr\u003eNAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY \u003ci\u003eTHE ATLANTIC \u003c\/i\u003eAND \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eSAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThomas Merton was a Trappist monk in Kentucky; Dorothy Day the founder of the\u003ci\u003e Catholic Worker \u003c\/i\u003ein New York; Flannery O'Connor a \"Christ-haunted\" literary prodigy in Georgia; and Walker Percy a doctor in Louisiana who had quit medicine in order to write. Although they never met as a group, for three decades they read one another's work, corresponded, and grappled with what Percy called a \"predicament shared in common\" their\u003cbr\u003edesire to reconcile the claims of faith and art. A friend came up with a name for them--the School of the Holy Ghost. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Life You Save May Be Your Own\u003c\/i\u003e is Paul Elie's now-classic group portrait of these four writers and the artistic and religious milieu they made their own. It is a riveting history of America's first Catholic literary moment--as the four go on pilgrimage from the God-obsessed literary past of Dante and Dostoevsky out into the chaos of postwar American life. It is a narrative of the ways faith took on forms the faithful could not have anticipated--\u003cbr\u003ethrough memoir and modernist fiction, in soup kitchens and street protests. And it is a story about the ways we look to great books and writers to help us make sense of our experience. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWith a new afterword by the author, \u003ci\u003eThe Life You Save May Be Your Own \u003c\/i\u003edemonstrates the power of great writing to change--and save--our lives.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\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.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Picador USA","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51321538806034,"sku":"9781250399144","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_c17b466f-e393-459c-a5ba-919309e8f76f.jpg?v=1748590157","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-life-you-save-may-be-your-own-an-american-pilgrimage-9781250399144","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}