Fine Delight

"Where are all the Catholic writers? is a popular question these days. In his beautifully realized new book The Fine Delight, Nicholas Ripatrazone offers an answer: they are among us, writing. With skill and care, he explores the artistry of three superb writers--Ron Hansen, Paul Mariani, and Andre Dubus--as well as several other contemporary Catholic authors. In the process he reveals . . . how reading can be sacramental, enabling us to discover God's presence in our modern world."

"The Fine Delight is a text of scholarship and personal consideration of American literature that is marked by and built from postconciliar Catholic thought. Nicholas Ripatrazone has written a highly readable study of the work of writers whose beliefs vary widely, but who share a living engagement with the Word. This book itself is just such an engagement. It will inspire more informed and curious reading."

"Nicholas Ripatrazone offers an insightful interrogation into the theological and aesthetic strategies of contemporary Catholic writers--novelists, poets, and essayists writing in the last fifty years. Aware that the Catholic imagination is not static, he suggests helpful ways to understand how post-Vatican II writers situate their faith in light of their artistic vision. A timely book, Ripatrazone helps extend the critical and pastoral implications of a Catholic literary aesthetic."

—James Martin, SJ, author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything

—Alice Elliott Dark, author of In the Gloaming: Stories

—Mark Bosco, SJ, author of Graham Greene's Catholic Imagination