Conversations with American Writers: The Doubt, the Faith, the In-Between

By W. Dale Brown

Book Overview

For years, Dale Brown has interviewed American writers, listening particularly for what they have to say about "wrestling with the sacred" in their writing. In this book, a follow-up to his earlier collection, Of Fiction and Faith, Brown gives readers the opportunity to listen in on his thoughtful conversations with ten contemporary writers.While many of these authors shy away from being labeled "Christian" writers, they all have much truth to tell through their work as they struggle with expressing both faith and doubt. The conversations recorded here offer a fresh dialogue on the power of art to sustain faith in unexpected ways.Interviews with: Eleanor Taylor Bland, David James Duncan, Terence Faherty, Ernest Gaines, Philip Gulley, Ron Hansen, Silas House, Jan Karon, Sheri Reynolds, Lee Smith.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802862284
• ISBN13: 9780802862280
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
• Length: 330 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Literary Detective Explores the Spiritual Stories Behind the Novels

Dale Brown - and, no, this is not the Dale Brown who writes military thrillers - has dedicated his life to exploring the spiritual lives of America's literary greats. For decades as a Professor of English at Calvin College in the Midwest, Dale developed this vocation until a Who's Who of major writers were joining the pilgrim's path to Calvin once or twice a year to participate in Dale's creative - and sometimes provocative -- festivals of faith and writing. You may have his earlier volume on your shelf already, "Of Fiction and Faith." That's a wonderful collection of Dale's earlier interviews with writers. I've often pulled my copy down from the shelf to recall how this author - or that author - turned a particular phrase about our vocations as writers. That first volume included some big-time heavyweights in the mix: Frederick Buechner, Garrison Keillor and Walter Wangerin among them. In his new volume, there are a couple of popularly celebrated names - Philip Gulley and Jan Karon in particular are sometimes tagged with the adjective "beloved" and their novels show up in people's living rooms wherever I wander these days. But, I recommend this new collection of Dale's interviews not so much for Gulley or Karon - but as a kind of skeleton key unlocking the spiritual stories behind the novels of some really interesting writers who have not become such loveable household names. The first chapter I read was Dale's conversation with the challenging novelist Ron Hansen - a Catholic writer whose works range from deeply disturbing historical novels, like "Hitler's Niece," to achingly inspirational stories like his new book, "Exiles." My second choice in the book was the chapter with Ernest Gaines, whose most famous works are "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" and "A Lesson Before Dying." Born in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, Gaines left the South before his teens. Nevertheless, like so many great Southern writers, he remains rooted in that place. What Dale is able to pull out of these writers is further guidance from them into the places, the images, the experiences, the spiritual windows that keep pulling and pushing their work. In the interview with Gaines, here's a passage in which Dale prompts the novelist to describe his Baptist roots. Gaines says, "I was baptized as a Baptist, baptized in the same river that I write about, the same river where we'd fish and wash our clothes. We washed our souls in that same river." Wow. After reading those words, I feasted for a whole day on that language and imagery. You won't read this book in a single gulp - but there's much to savor here over time.