The Catholic novel is a potentially dangerous thing.
Just as good poetry is able to say more and say it more intensely than ordinary language can, a good novel reveals truths about human nature and reality in ways our actual experience with reality can't.
Done well, the Catholic novel in particular has the power to inspire the imagination and give us valuable perspectives on how to see our lives as the dramas they actually are: Lives seeking God; God pursuing us.
Done poorly though, a Catholic novel can repel, souring the reader to the whole idea of religious fiction as something noble, a source for renewal and deeper understanding.
In Flannery O'Connor's posthumously published book Mystery and Manners, we are given a description of the Catholic novel:
"If I had to say what a 'Catholic novel' is, I could only say that it is one that represents reality adequately as we see it manifested in this world of things and human relationships. Only in and by these sense experiences does the fiction writer approach a contemplative knowledge of the mystery they embody."
O'Connor continues:
"Ever since there have been such things as novels, the world has been flooded with bad fiction for which the religious impulse has been responsible. The sorry religious novel comes about when the writer supposes that because of his belief, he is somehow dispensed from the obligation to penetrate concrete reality. He will think that the eyes of the Church or of the Bible or of his particular theology have already done the seeing for him...We must say whether this or that novel truthfully portrays the aspect of reality that it sets out to portray."
For Flannery O'Connor then, the Catholic author has an obligation to present reality as it is and to avoid creating a sanitized world dressed with pious phrases, no amount of which will convince, let alone inspire, a reader.
With this tall order in mind, Sophia Press proudly announcesChristopher, a new Catholic novel steeped in a Catholic context but one authentically in tension with the world.
David Athey is a seasoned author who understands well the responsibility of the novelist as described by O'Connor.
An associate professor of English at Palm Beach Atlantic University, Athey has published nearly 200 poems, stories, and essays in several prominent literary journals such The Harvard Review, The Iowa Review, and Southern Humanities Review. Christopher is hissecond novel.
Set beneath the grandeur of the vast Minnesota sky, and in its cold lakes and dark forests, Christopher is a modern love story and a quest for the Holy Grail. But much more as well.
Poetic, funny, touching, and often daringly honest, page by page, mystery by mystery, adventure after adventure, and with ever-growing urgency, we travel with young Christopher Lagorio as he grows toward manhood seeking to discover and become worthy of the perfect girl, while resisting a call he fears may literally destroy him. He is haunted by heaven, but tethered to the earth.
Christopher is a tribute to a genuine love of our fellow man, the Great Books, and to the source and summit of our Faith.
"David Athey has written another marvel."
-DALE AHLQUIST, President
American Chesterton Society
Intended for adults and mature teens.
And remember to take advantage of our store-wide 25% discount good through the end of January: at check out enter discount code newsite25.
by David Athey
384 pgs ppbk $19.95
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