On Thomas Merton
On Thomas Merton by Mary Gordon, published by Shambhala Publications on January 15, 2019, offers a deeply personal exploration of the celebrated modern monk and thinker through his writings. This first edition, comprising 160 pages, presents Gordon’s candid insights into Merton’s life and work, emphasizing the duality of his existence as both a monk and a writer. Through a rich selection of excerpts from Merton’s letters, journals, autobiography, and fiction, Gordon examines how these facets of his identity shaped his contributions to mid-twentieth-century American Catholicism.
Readers will find an intimate portrait of Thomas Merton, highlighting the internal and external dialogues that defined his journey. Gordon approaches Merton as a fellow writer, revealing the complexities of his thoughts and beliefs. The book delves into themes of biography and spirituality, illustrating Merton’s struggles and triumphs as he navigated his roles in both the religious and literary worlds. This exploration not only sheds light on Merton’s legacy but also invites reflection on the broader intersections of religion and writing.
Official synopsis Publisher
From the best-selling novelist and memoirist: a deeply personal view of her discovery of the celebrated modern monk and thinker through his writings.
“If Thomas Merton had been a writer and not a monk, we would never have heard of him. If Thomas Merton had been a monk and not a writer, we would never have heard of him.”
So begins acclaimed author Mary Gordon in this probing, candid exploration of the man who became the face and voice of mid-twentieth-century American Catholicism. Approaching Merton “writer to writer,” Gordon illuminates his life and work through his letters, journals, autobiography, and fiction. Pope Francis has celebrated Merton as “a man of dialogue,” and here Gordon shows that the dialogue was as much internal as external—an unending conversation, and at times a heated conflict, between Merton the monk and Merton the writer.
Rich with excerpts from Merton’s own writing, On Thomas Merton produces an intimate portrait of a man who “lived life in all its imperfectability, reaching toward it in exaltation, pulling back in anguish, but insisting on the primacy of his praise as a man of God.”
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