…if you’re a brilliant writer, you get forgiven a lot of things: antisocial behavior, excessive drinking, fits of depression, offensive comments, general melancholy, moral lapses…I’ll stop now.
BUT, if you’re a middling writer, then you’re just a boor.
(So shall we add self-pity to the list?)
A nod to Kierkegaard and Walker Percy: existentialist tomfoolery, political satire, literary homage, word mongering, a year-round summer reading club, Dylanesque music bits, apocalyptic marianism, poetry, fiction, meta-porn, a prisoner work-release program.
Søren Kierkegaard
Walker Percy
Bob Dylan
Literature & History
Letters from an American
Beau of the Fifth Column
This American Life
The Writer’s Almanac
San Diego Reader
The Stranger
The Inlander
Adoremus
Charlotte was Both
The Onion
From Empty Hands
Ellen Finnigan
America
Commonweal
First Things
National Review
The New Republic
All Manner of Thing
Gerasene Writers Conference
Scrutinies
DarwinCatholic
Catholic and Enjoying It
Bad Catholic
Universalis
Is My Phylactery Showing?
Quotidian Quintilian
En pocas palabras
William Wilson, Guitarist Extraordinaire
Signposts in a Strange Land
Ben Hatke
Daniel Mitsui
Dappled Things
The Fine Delight
Gene Luen Yang
Wiseblood Books
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Matthew,
(You asked for it!)
Speak for yourself! I happen to find my own company, farm-league as it is, rather exciting sometimes, thank you very much!
There’s nothing you can’t scare up in the way of fun if you gots a bottle of whisky and a typewriter!
JOB
Hello Mr. Lickona,
This doesn’t seem quite the place to write this, but I didn’t know what the appropriate place is. I just wanted to say that I read your book about two weeks ago (I saw your interviews with the Nat’l Catholic Register and US News, and was interested, but Fr. Neuhaus’ “vote” was the deciding one), and I enjoyed it very much. As so many people seem to say, I found myself majorly squirming in a few parts (and I am, for the most part, a Flannery O’Connor-reading-Catholic), but I really had a lot of sympathy with you…from minor things (how easily I say it now!) like hand-holding in Mass, to my own thoughts on the Latin Mass, “parish-hopping”, and my own skeptical mind. Your book was hilarious in so many parts. Additionally, when I went back for a second read, I found myself not only laughing and sympathizing, but admiring your clean, tight, descriptive…near-perfect prose. I loved your book. Thank you for writing it.
Claire
Claire,
Thank you for your kind words, and thanks for reading. From your praise of the book’s prose and its attempts at humor, I can tell that you are a brilliant human being and a fine literary critic. Seriously, those are high compliments to me. I think the real good of the book is the sense of solidarity it may provide – that’s been the best thing about the feedback I’ve gotten, at any rate.
Ah, yes, that’s me all right! Brilliant…fine literary critic…the list could continue. 🙂 I completely agree with you about the sense of solidarity the book provides to orthodox Catholics, especially those who resist the “shelteredness” that so often accompanies the orthodoxy (this observation is based on my experience and I hope is offensive to no one).
Claire