The Life You Save May Be Your Own

Beginning as four disconnected biographies, this book gradually reveals its theme: four significant mid-twentieth-century writers exploring their Catholic faith through their work. As Flannery O'Connor, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, and Walker Percy come into their own as writers, one begins to see the connection. Lloyd James's clear, educated voice suits the scholarly text. Its richness of tone and clarity of elocution allow the listener to engage without distraction. Interestingly, James's attempts at accents are somewhat inconsistent. The Southern drawls of Georgia-born O'Connor and Mississippi-bred Percy are unbalanced by any flavor of French from Merton. R.L.L. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

Starred review from March 10, 2003
Four 20th-century writers whose work was steeped in their shared Catholic faith come together in this masterful interplay of biography and literary criticism. Elie, an editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, where three of the four writers published their work, lays open the lives and writings of the monk Thomas Merton, Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day, and novelists Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy. Drawing comparisons between their backgrounds, temperaments, circumstances and words, he reveals "four like-minded writers" whose work took the shape of a movement. Though they produced no manifesto, Elie writes, they were unified as pilgrims moving toward the same destination while taking different paths. As they sought truth through their writing, he observes, they provided "patterns of experience" that future pilgrims could read into their lives. This volume (the title is taken from a short story of the same name by O'Connor) is an ambitious undertaking and one that could easily have become ponderous, but Elie's presentation of the material is engaging and thoughtful, inspiring reflection and further study. Beginning with four separate figures joined only by their Catholicism and their work as writers, he deftly connects them, using their correspondence, travels, places of residence, their religious experiences and their responses to the tumultuous events of their times. This thoroughly researched and well-sourced work deserves attention from students of history, literature and religion, but it will be of special significance to Catholic readers interested in the expression of faith in the modern world.