Dancing Priest

Author and Novelist Glynn Young

Reviews

“The Storied Life” by Jared Wilson

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I’ve had many conversations with Christian writers about the idea of “calling,” that writing is a calling from God. Most will agree; some even will identify a specific time when they experienced the calling. 

I can’t. Writing has been a part of my life since I can remember. I was raised in a culturally Christian home, but I had been writing for almost 12 years by the time I became a Christian. I wrote my first story when I was 10; I don’t remember much about it except it was a mystery, involved a group of kids, and featured a grandfather clock that opened to a secret passage and a cave.

Jared Wilson has had a far different experience. In The Storied Life: Christian Writing as Art and Worship, he develops the idea of writing as a specific calling (a kind of ministry, for those unfamiliar with “calling”) and goes so far as the suggest a theology of writing. He tells a good story, and he’s created a solid case for writing as one of those endeavors God would see as good.

The Storied Life is divided into two parts. First, Wilson provides reflections on story. What makes writing good? Does writing have its own liturgy? (Wilson would say yes.) And then he explores writing as a spiritual act.

Part Two is how Wilson explains cultivating the spiritual life. This moves the narrative into areas more familiar to all writers – finding your voice, excellence, the promise and perils of platform, and writing as a calling. Yet even here, he retains a Christian perspective. Writing can be a vocation or an avocation (for me, it’s been both). He explains there isn’t just one kind of calling to writing; the calling can be a call to grow, to emphasize, to recognize limitations, and even to worship.

Wilson suggests that, like the characters we create in fiction, we, too, are characters in God’s story. And just like our fictional characters seem to have a mind of their own (which I’ve experienced many times in fiction), so, too, do we. The calling to be characters in God’s story, and the call to write, is “a call to be his,” he says.

Jared Wilson

Wilson is an assistant professor of Pastoral Ministry and author in residence at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. He also serves as staff pastor for preaching and director of the Pastoral Training Center at Liberty Baptist Church, also in Kansas City. He received a B.A. degree in English from Middle Tennessee State University and an M.A. degree in ministry service at Spurgeon College. He’s currently enrolled in the D.Min. degree program at Midwestern. 

The Storied Life is written for Christian writers. Others can read it and benefit, but it is aimed squarely at those of us among the Christian community who are called to write. Wilson offers his own experience, encouragement, and deep insights into the writing process. Christian writers need a book precisely like this one.

Top photograph by Etienne Girardet via Unsplash. Used with permission.

“A Shining” by Jon Fosse: It Does Have Punctuation, Which Helps 

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In 2023, Norwegian author Jon Fosse received the Nobel Prize for Literature. He’s a novelist, playwright, essayist, and author of children’s books; in fact, he’s likely better known for his theater plays than his novels. 

When I read about the Nobel, I checked Amazon to see what of his works might be available in English. At the time, there wasn’t much; the situation now is considerably different. There was a short story available in translation, A Shining, translated by Damion Searls. 

A Shining is a short story, longish as in – coming in at 43 pages in the e-book version. It tells the story of man who drives from him home with no destination in mind. He simply keeps driving until his car gets stuck in a narrow forest road. After debating what to do, he decides to try to find help in the forest.

The man moves through a series of dreamlike sequences; the shining of the title happens two or three times, when some kind of shining presence is watching him, then walking with him. He also sees his own parents. By the end, he’s in the presence of his parents and the shining presence, still walking through the forest, barefoot. (And it’s cold and snowy; he shivers from the cold several times and wishes he’d stayed in his car.)

The entire story is a metaphor for death; he never says his parents predeceased him, but they’re barefoot, too. The presence is something of a God-like guide, not directing toward any particular end or goal but just being there.

Jon Fosse

It’s an unusual story. It’s also a 43-page story with one paragraph. While the indent feature on his keyboard might have been broken, the effect of a single paragraph is essentially to compel the reader to keep reading; there’s no good place to stop or even pause. The story does have punctuation (another Nobel Prizewinner, William Faulkner, could often be bad about that), and punctuation helps.

The story is rather haunting. It builds a sense of frustration; how long is this guy going to continue to wander in the dark and not find help? The help does come, of course, but it’s not what the reader’s expecting. It’s a story about death, but it’s also a story about faith. The story may have been influenced by his own childhood when he suffered a serious accident and came close to death. He speaks of seeing “a shimmering presence.” He was raised in the Quaker and Pietest traditions, and he’s now a practicing Catholic.

His Nobel lecture is entitled “A Silent Language.” It’s available to watch on YouTube (he’s introduced in English but his lecture is Norwegian) and it can be read in English here.

Top photograph by Casey Horner via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Literary and Other Kinds of Fiction

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Wiseblood Books, which leans in the direction of being a Catholic publisher, has been issuing a series of novels and poetry collections that that interesting, thought-provoking, and broader than the idea of “Catholic publisher” might imply. Its novelists and poets include Dana Gioia, Marly Youmans, James Matthew Wilson, Samuel Hazo, Charles Hughes, Katy Carl, Sally Thomas, Glenn Arbery, R.R. Reno, and others.

What these writers have in common is that they write perceptively and unapologetically about faith, although it’s usually not that obvious. The fiction is serious, literary fiction; the poetry is just as serious, and just as literary. Both compare favorably to anything produced by mainstream, “secular” publishers. Wiseblood’s books aren’t out to score political points and tick the boxes of the latest social and cultural mania to seize the imaginations of what passes for America’s literary elites. 

Instead, they tell stories. They wrestle with what people wrestle with, including holding on to faith in a world growing more indifferent and more hostile.

I was reminded of this when I read a Wiseblood monograph, Christopher Beha: Novelist in a Postsecular World by Katy Carl. I’ve heard of Beha, a writer and novelist who served as editor of Harper’s Magazine from 2019 to 2023. He stepped down from the position for the best of reasons; he couldn’t balance his editorial duties with his writing.

Carl’s 32-page monograph explores Beha’s novels – The Whole Five Feet (2010), What Happened to Sophie Wilder(2012), Arts & Entertainments (2014), and The Index of Self-Destructive Acts (2020). And what she finds is that, in what describes as a “postsecular” world, raising the possibility of faith and belief is, well, okay. You can do it in serious fiction, and Beha does it very well, indeed. 

Carl is the editor in chief of Dappled Things Magazine. Her stories and articles have appeared in numerous literary publications, and she previously published the novel As Earth Without Water (2021) and a short story collection, Fragile Objects (2023). She was chosen as Wiseblood Books first writer in residence in 2020, and she is pursuing an MFA degree in creative writing at the University of St. Thomas in Houston., whose founding faculty were James Matthew Wilson and Joshua Hren.  

Katy Carl

Her essay on Beha’s novels repeatedly made me think about my own writing, and how I would describe it. I don’t write literary fiction. I can’t say I write “popular” fiction, or mass market fiction, either. When asked, I’ve said “contemporary fiction.” A few people have suggested “alternative history” or even “alternative future history.” More recently, it’s been historical fiction – no doubts about what to call a novel set during the Civil War and 1915. And now a new one is underway, and it’s definitely contemporary fiction. 

It may be a copout of sorts, but, setting labels aside, all authors have to write the story that’s asking to be written, because it’s a story that the author has to tell. 

I’ve gradually learned the importance of trusting my characters and writing like the writer Harvey Stanbrough describes – WITD, or “writing into the dark.” That means writing with no set outline but trusting your characters enough because they know what they’re doing. I learned that lesson with my last novel, Dancing Prince. One character refused to stay in the minor role I planned for him. I finally surrendered and gave him his head, and he took over. 

And it worked.

Related:

Fragile Objects: Short Stories by Katy Carl.

Wiseblood Books monographs.

Top photograph by Aman Upadhyay via Unsplash. Used with permission.

“Across Five Aprils” by Irene Hunt

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In 1964, author Irene Hunt (1907-2001) published the middle-grade novel Across Five Aprils. It’s the coming-of-age story of nine-year-old Jethro Creighton, the youngest of five brothers and a sister. They live and work with their parents Matt and Emma on a farm in southern Illinois.

This coming-of-age story is set during the Civil War, beginning in 1861. It’s so well done, and such a good story, that it’s no wonder that it was runner-up to the Newberry Medal in 1965 (her second book, Up the Road Slowly, won the medal in 1966). In 212 pages, Hunt manages to tell both the story of the Creighton family and the story of the Civil War itself. 

Told from Jethro’s perspective, we watch what happens when the reports come of the fall of Fort Sumter. The oldest brother has not been heard from in years, having gone to California for the Gold Rush. Two brothers and the cousin who lives with the family join the Union army; Jethro’s favorite brother Bill joins the Confederate army. Jenny’s beau, the schoolteacher Jethro adores, eventually throws his lot in with the Union. 

While it is the story of the war and how his brothers fare, Across Five Aprils is also Jethro’s story and what happens back home. When Jethro is 10, his father suffers a heart attack, and the boy suddenly finds himself of being head of the family. Through Jethro’s eyes, we see the violence that happens in a region of conflicted loyalties, the impact of the war’s news on the family, and how the war meant unexpected struggles on the home front. 

The characters seem like real people. Hunt had a gift for characterization, and even the minor characters come alive on the page. Hunt based the story on the tales and letters of her own grandfather, who experienced the Civil War much as Jethro does in the novel. She also did extensive research in newspaper reports, government documents, histories, biographies, and memoirs.

Irene Hunt

Hunt, a native of Illinois, taught English and French in Illinois schools and later psychology at the University of South Dakota. She returned to Illinois to become director of language arts at a junior high school. Including Across Five Aprils, she published eight novels between 1864 and 1985, and she won several awards for children’s literature. She died on her 98th birthday in 2001.

After 60 years, Across Five Aprils has stood the test of time. It’s a riveting read as we watch, through a boy’s eyes, as the war unfold. The Creighton family will endure heartbreak and tragedy, fear and violence. But it is the family that endures. 

Top photograph: A farmer and two boys cutting hay in Kentucky during the Civil War.

The First Book I Ever Bought

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It was the summer before I turned seven. A favorite activity for all of us kids in the neighborhood was to ride our bikes up to the TG&Y dime store in the local shopping center and usually just drool over all the toys in the children’s section. The distance between our block and the dime store was about a mile-and-a-half; we’d ride back streets to get there, avoiding the more direct, and busy, nearby U.S. Highway 61.

The shopping center included the TG&Y, a Beall’s department store, a Western Auto, a Mackenzie’s Bakery, and the anchor, the A&P grocery store. A few years later, a Katz & Bestoff (K&B) drug store was added on the western end.

As young as I was, I was reading beyond my years. I liked the dime store’s toys and games as much as anyone, but I also would wander over to where the children’s books were displayed in something like a magazine rack, with staggered rows so you could see all the titles. The books were for all ages, from toddler to young teen.

One Saturday, I rode by myself to TG&Y. I placed my 16-inch red bicycle on the pavement in front, secured by a kickstand. (This was a long time ago, when you didn’t think to have a bicycle lock. Why would you need one?) I made my way to the book display. I’d had my eye on one, and I had just enough money to buy it, including tax. It was all of 59 cents.

It was my first book purchase.

Trixie Belden and the Secret of the Mansion was originally published by Julie Campbell Tatham (1908-1999) in 1948. Officially, it was a “girl detective novel,” so you didn’t exactly want to be with your friends when you bought it. It followed a long line of teen detective stories that had become wildly popular in the 1920s and 1930s – The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew being among the most well known.

I came to that book, a mystery with two 13-year-old girl detectives, because of television. Through various TV shows, both after-school programs (like the Mickey Mouse Club’s Hardy Boys segment) and primetime TV series, I discovered I liked mysteries. So why not read one? And this one had an added bonus – an old mansion that was probably haunted.

I brought the book to the checkout counter, made my purchase, the salesgirl bagged it, and I was on my way home. I was soon visiting the town of Sleepyside-on-Hudson in New York State, where the Belden family with its four children lived. Brian and Martin were older teens; Trixie was 13; and little brother Bobby was 5 or 6, and often the bane of Trixie’s young life.

Julie Campbell Tatham

It was a fully recognizable family, not unlike Ozzie & Harriet. Kids got into minor trouble, but it was easily resolved. Nobody was dysfunctional. Heroes and villains were easily identifiable, and they were never the same person. I don’t think Trixie’s mother ever vacuumed wearing a nice frock and pearls, like June Cleaver did on Leave It to Beaver, but her character is not unlike Beaver’s mother and Harriet Nelson.

A new family, the Wheelers, had just moved into the nearby large estate next to the Belden’s farm (Mr. Belden also worked at an office job). Also close by is the Frayne mansion, decaying ever since old Mr. Frayne’s wife had died. Mr. Frayne himself has just been taken to the hospital after being found by Trixie’s father at the foot of the long driveway.

I reread the story that I first read some 65 years ago. I wanted to see how much I remembered, how much I didn’t, and if I would like it as much as that kid did back in the late 1950s. I recalled three things: Bobby getting bitten by a copperhead; a fire where the only thing that’s saved (by Trixie, of course) is a mattress; and Mr. Frayne’s 15-year-old nephew Jim, who comes to Sleepyside to get away from a mean and brutal stepfather.

My memory was intact, including the overall arc of the story. Trixie and her new friend Honey Wheeler are a textbook example of opposites attracting. I thought I’d read more about Trixie’s two older brothers, but they’re both away at camp and don’t figure into the story. I remembered that Jim had red hair.

What I didn’t remember was that, while the story ends on a high note, it also ends with a couple of hanging threads, like what happens to Jim? If I want to find out, I have to read the next book in the series, The Red Trailer Mystery. Nice marketing ploy, that.

The author, Julie Campbell Tatham, wrote the first six books in the series. The next 33 were written by a variety of writers, typically using the pen name “Kathryn Kenny.” The books are still in print. Because I read an original edition published by Whitman Publishing in 1958, I don’t know if the more contemporary editions have been “modernized” or not. Some of that has happened with The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. Campbell Tatham also wrote the Ginny Gordon series at the same time she was writing the Trixie Belden books.

I found my copy of Trixie Belden and the Secret of the Mansion via a used bookstore online. It is exactly the same edition I bought when I was a kid, the one I carried home on my bike from TG&Y. I’m that almost-seven-year-old kid again, buying and enjoying the first book he ever bought for himself.

Top photograph by Eleanor Brooke via Unsplash. Used with permission.

“God Rest Ye Merry, Soldiers” by James McIvor

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In 1861, the first year of the Civil War, soldiers on both sides still felt some sense of momentum. Overly optimistic, many believed the war would over by Christmas. As the war stretched into 1862, the initial optimism was giving way to something else – a sense of failure and despair. And that sense affected both sides. 

The South was beginning to feel the bite of the Union blockade of Southern ports. The North was watching a series of what seemed like only Confederate victories on the battlefield. Soldiers were becoming demoralized. It didn’t help the Union’s cause that so many senior officers were “political generals” and appeared sorely lacking in experience and common sense. The sense of failure and isolation was especially acute around Christmas, when soldiers would have ordinarily been home with their families.

Using books, articles, letters (both published and unpublished), archival papers, and diaries, author James McIvor has written God Rest Ye Merry, Soldiers: A True Civil War Christmas Story. He’s provided a snapshot of what the Christmas season was like during the four years of the Civil War. His focus is the soldiers, what they thought, what they experienced, and often why they wanted to be anyplace other than where they were. The book was first published in 2006. 

Sometimes the Christmas season and holiday coincided with battles, and soldiers found themselves marching to battle when they would have preferred to be at home, or at worst sitting around a campfire and enjoying a good meal. More often, Christmas was quiet, leaving too much time to think and reflect, and miss fallen colleagues and the family at home.

He points out that the Civil War changed perceptions of the holiday. The suffering on both sides had been great, and the feelings about Christmas that had been growing for decades before the war became something much stronger with the end of the way. “The Civil War, in fact,” McIvor writes, “made Christmas a truly American holiday in a way it had never entirely been before.”

McIvor is a longtime Civil War enthusiast and freelance writer. He lives in Virginia. 

God, Rest Ye Merry, Soldiers is a poignant narrative, but it avoids sentimentalism. Soldiers who served before and after the Civil War would likely find some of their own story here.

Top illustration: Christmas Eve 1863 by Thomas Nast, the German-born Civil War cartoonist who is credited with creating the image of Santa Claus.