Customer Reviews

Dorothy Day: Portraits by Those Who Knew Her

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book completely captivates you. It makes you feel like you are sitting down with all these people and having a cup of hot cocoa. The writer too, has the extraordinary good nature to include herself in the book, remain light and take you with her wherever she knows you'd like to go. The book has amazing insights into every aspect of the human psyche. I found myself reading, being so overwhelmed with its humaness and kindness that I had to stop and press my hand across the page and reverently feel it. It riveting, yet calming.

It's Sunday afternoon, and I'm unwinding. I sit down to the refreshment of continuing to read Dorothy
Day: Portraits by Those Who Knew Her, by Rosalie Riegle. I get up to tell you the comfort, joy, and a
whole lot of other things that it gives me! Reading the book is a vicarious living with Dorothy. The
author has done a wonderful arranging of disparate materials, so that there's an appropriate sense of
progression. That's a feat! (This is a book I don't want to end.)

Dorothy Day, saint of the unwashed and unwanted, pacifist/anarchist,who actually lived the verses in MATTHEW 25 about the least among us,was an astonishing gift to Catholicism of the 20th century. Her influence is as great as any prelate[read any bishops letter on poverty,nuclear war,justice and you can see her gentle,firm hand there],yet it is/was as the co -founder of the Catholic Worker movement that she is best known for. these essays highlight Dorthy Day in her graciousness and deep prayer,her temper and moemnts of depression,her undying faith in the church,and unfailing criticism of the state. Dorothy day is not for the faint of heart or spirit.She disturbs,by her constancy and beauty. I am in constant awe...Hugely Recommended

This is a great portrait of an inspiring woman, Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement. Riegle interviewed dozens of people and paints a very human picture with their short stories. The book can be read in long sittings or in short snippets. Our world needs more people like Dorothy Day and Riegle shows us why.

Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker, radical pacifist, friend of the poor, has been called the conscience of the American Catholic Church. Lately she has also been called a saint. But who was she, really? In this moving and entertaining portrait, drawn from the memories of those who knew her best, Dorothy Day emerges as a woman of courage, humor, and love, who left an unforgettable mark on the lives of all she touched. Included are 134 voices of those who knew Day as a friend, a writer, a mother, a champion of the oppressed, and a spiritual guide. They tell what it was like to march with her on picket lines, to go to jail, to pray the rosary, and to discuss her favorites novels or the news of the day. This collective portrait best captures her many sides as a woman who was both ordinary and unique and includes an insert of rarely seen photos.

The life of Dorothy Day has captivated people both during her lifetime and after her death. We have many of her own writings as well as a number of biographies, so her story still speaks to people and inspires many. Of the many biographies available, few are repetitive. Biographers seem to gain new insights into her life, work and spirituality and it's my guess that this will continue in the upcoming years since her life touches so many people in different ways. This work contains familiar information but it also has a new and fresh approach.

Rosalie Riegle is familiar with Dorothy Day's life from her research for her work VIOCES FROM THE CATHOLIC WORKER. In this work she gives us a biography that contains the story of Dorothy Day but isn't just the standard story. Riegle has collected stories, vignettes, and remembrances from the people who knew and worked with Day. Readers familiar with Dorothy Day's life and her work with the Catholic Worker will recognize many writers of many of the remembrances included: Jim Forrest, Robert Coles, Tom and Monica Cornell, Eileen Egan, Robert Ellsberg, and Fr. Richard McSorely. Some of the writings included are published for the first time in this work. She also includes remembrances from people who died before the book's publication but are an indispensable part of any Dorothy day biography: Peter Maurin, Thomas Merton, Sr. Peter Claver. While the stories associated with the familiar people associated with day are wonderful, there are many stories and vignettes from people not so well known but help compose the intriguing portrait found in this book.

Readers who are familiar with Dorothy Day's life will enjoy this book not because of the new light it sheds on Day's work and accomplishments but on the many stories and anecdotes that have been included that cannot be found elsewhere. We see day with all her gifts and all her quirks told by people who loved her because of who she was, and perhaps at times in spite of who she was. The Dorothy day we meet in this book may be a saint, though she was not always saintly. We see a woman of conviction, a woman of talent, and a woman open to God's direction in her life. While this is an excellent stand alone biography, it is an even better as a companion for the classic biographies of William Miller's DOROTHY DAY: A BIOGRAPHY (now out of print) and Jim Forrest's LOVE IS THE MEASURE.

As I was thinking about writing this review of Rosalie Riegle's book Dorothy Day: Portraits by Those Who Knew Her, I started reading Mary Pipher's newest book, Writing to Change the World. She quotes James Baldwin:

"You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't....The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way...people look at reality, then you can change it."

Pipher says, "Good writing enlarges readers' knowledge of the world, or empowers readers to act for the common good, or even inspires other good writing." Just as Dorothy Day wrote her newspaper for these reasons, Rosalie Riegle writes about Day to remember her and her work for the common good, as well as to empower and inspire her readers in the same direction. This is a book of interviews going back to 1988 and Riegle's second book on Day's work, following Voices from the Catholic Worker.

Dorothy Day was the co-founder, with Peter Maurin, of the Catholic Worker in 1933. It is both a newspaper and a community movement. The ideology inspiring it has been described as "Christian Anarchist."

Although I am neither a Christian nor an anarchist, through the years my life has crossed paths with those involved in the Catholic Worker movement. The first one I remember was Michael Harrington, who spent time at the Catholic Worker House in New York in the fifties. He was one of the many people interviewed by Riegle for her book. In the early sixties, he stayed with my husband and me when he came to Bloomington, Indiana to speak for the Young Peoples Socialist League at a public meeting at Indiana University. We stayed up into the night talking about the problems of the world and their possible solutions, and we were fascinated by his stories of his time there. In the sixties, he was a leading socialist and gained national fame with his book The Other America, which is credited with inspiring Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty.

Another interview was with Karl Meyer, who was householder of a Catholic Worker House in Chicago during the time I was there, and known as a peace activist. While they lived in Chicago, Glenn and Anne, a couple who were among my best friends, visited the Catholic Worker house often. After I moved to New Mexico, I met an artist who had spent time living in a rural Catholic Worker community in New York state when she was a single mother with a young child. Then, in 1996, I met and became friends with Rosalie Riegle at the International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women in Adelaide, Australia. At that time she was already working on this book. Her book has makes me understand her better as well as being inspired by Day and her followers.

An honest and balanced portrayal of a remarkable woman, from every possible angle. What articulate voices there are at the Catholic Worker! Dorothy Day simply tried to live her life according to the Christian gospels. How exactly to do that was not always simple, but she heard the message at the heart of Christianity and lived it. This is not a plaster saint on a pedestal; this is the real Dorothy Day, human and approachable, doing "the work" of Christianity from decade to decade. Setting a good example for the rest of us to follow.

Not a chronological biography, this is a book of memories, anecdotes, "Dorothy stories," told by those who knew her best. About her spirituality, her political activism, her leadership of the movement she founded, her writing, her family and friends, her humor and her no-nonsense dedication to her work. What was she really like? The purpose of this book, says the author, is "to present a real and believable Dorothy Day." Should she be canonized a saint of the Catholic church? See the discussion in the epilogue.

A beautiful book, illustrated with rare photographs. Highly recommended.