Jesus in the Minnows: A Catholic Beat Memoir

This is a memoir, yes, fictionalised (as all of them are in some way) because the facts don’t matter nearly as much here as the Holy Spirit who moves the furniture, the physical world, and everything in it. This unvarnished book tries to do more than offer a happy or easy conversion. It foregrounds the Beat movement too, a movement that has long been way station and home to many excellent Catholic poets. The list is a long one: Kerouac, Merton, Everson, Fabilli, Berrigan, Baxter, Kavanagh, Levertov, Murray, Mariani, Karr, and Mistral. Not to mention song writers: Cohen, Springsteen, Waits; and if we’re willing to stretch it a little, Dylan and Mitchell. The form, its openness and incompleteness, are perfect vessels. Jesus in the Minnows tries to bring these things together: a living Jesus, the author’s on-going conversion, and his Beat vocation as poet and teacher. The reader will also find that humility, wisdom, mushrooms, and humor have come along to make it an interesting road trip.

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