Grace: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Mary Cartledgehayes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 25, 2003

Mary Cartledgehayes’s life was going along swimmingly. Her husband, Fred, was about to take early retirement so the two of them could embark on a life of travel and leisure. There was just one problem: God. It had all started when the roof of her new gold Chevette became transparent and radiance poured in on her head. Now it was clear that a life of leisure was out; Mary embarked on the arduous, exhausting, and wonderful experience of becoming a minister. Grace is her story.

Divinity school wasn’t an obvious choice for Mary in middle age, once a wildly unconventional single mother of two who’d been twice divorced by age twenty-five, who had pretty dresses in her closet and expletives on the tip of her tongue. Grace reveals how an all-too-ordinary woman comes to terms with the sometimes devastating impact of the sacred. With unabashed exuberance, Mary tells of leading a congregation as its first female pastor, of her moving struggle to knit the congregation around its most ailing member, and her painful realization that in order to live faithfully she must leave a job she loves. Simultaneously, she decides to take up piano and discovers a pursuit whose spiritual rewards are both abundant and unexpected.

Inspired and inspiring, Grace is a wickedly delightful account of spiritual and personal renewal in midlife and a lively testament to the transformative power of grace in all its many guises.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This breathless, pulsating, sensual memoir by a Methodist minister demonstrates a poetic mastery over language and breaks open stereotypes about Methodists, ministers, feminists, grandmothers, musicians and all the other roles Cartledgehayes embodies. The book is a brisk excursion through her unusual childhood on a small island, her early pregnancies and failed marriages and the dramatic miracle that propelled her into church, a loving relationship and the ministry. Cartledgehayes steers the reader firmly through life as a woman in a conservative divinity school and into her post with a struggling congregation. This is not a Pollyanna story about how the maverick but plucky outsider wins the hearts of a skeptical, resistant community; it is a mosaic exploration of how hard it can be to love a community (let alone please everyone in it). Cartledgehayes lets readers glimpse the exhausting, give-it-your-all world of creating sermons without deconstructing or diminishing the spiritual power that gives them life. She flips with ease between the daily grind of ministry and connections with the divine; the Zen-like moments she enjoys holding her grandbabies and the healing sex she shares with her husband. She swears liberally and loves passionately. The memoir also dissects the issues that eventually propelled Cartledgehayes out of the ministry and into piano lessons, hence the many piano metaphors sprinkled throughout the book. Somehow Cartledgehayes turns herself inside out in this memoir without turning the reader off; it is a dense and juicy book that moves both heart and mind.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

As we quickly learn, Cartledgehayes never does anything half-heartedly. She is also full of surprises, which helps explain how she--middle-aged, twice divorced, with children--decided to be an ordained United Methodist minister. Indeed, there is nothing ordinary about her. Consider her moment of conversion: in November 1980, on her way to work from the dry cleaners, she shifted into third gear on a four-lane road when the roof of her car became transparent, and a shaft of light bathed her in a golden glow. In keeping with that event the rest of her story is entertaining as well as powerfully moving, and she is outspoken, opinionated, and controversial as well as compassionate and humane. When she finally leads her own congregation, things do not always go as planned, but at home or in the pulpit, her personality shines out, making this most unusual memoir by one of the most memorable recent memoirists funny, earthy, and poignant. June Sawyers
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1 edition (March 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609608347
• ISBN-13: 978-0609608340
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #668,651 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Something For Everyone, March 28, 2003

By 

howellassoctx (Annapolis, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grace: A Memoir (Hardcover)

When asked for a cover blurb on 'Grace' by the publisher, I responded, "Why would you want comments on a what looks like a "chick book" from a throw-back, Neanderthal. It's not my kind of book. The title's a cliché and I hate touchy, feely, religious books that are long on emotion and short on experience and logic."

Their response, "You may be surprised. We're trying to define the market. If you don't hate it, other more enlightened and thoughtful males may like it."

And surprised I was--so much for my biases. When I began reading I couldn't put it down. The writer is both real and realistic. Her use of the English language is poetic and beautiful. In an era of banal memoir bombardment, her story is interesting, compelling, thought provoking, challenging and will touch a cord with in most of us--male and female alike. What she says may make us uncomfortable at times, but will also force us to think and assess our own views. One is compelled to keep turning pages to experience the beauty of her writing, as well as discover her reality-based approach to the challenges, traumas and disillusionments of life. In the process she provides a mirror in which many of us will see our own reflection.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightfully Honest, April 9, 2003

By 

"mgranholm" (Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grace: A Memoir (Hardcover)

I lost two nights of beauty sleep because I was up late reading Mary Jo Cartledgehayes's "Grace." In fact, because I was laughing too much and too loud, my husband kicked me out of our bed. This book is delightfully honest and honestly delightful. Parts are outrageous! One of my favorite passages is on page 243. Mary Jo -- who's 48 and happily married -- admits her infatuation with her piano teacher who's in his 20's. She tells in direct language what she would do if Brian were 20 years younger and willing.

I think both men and women would enjoy Mary Jo's outrageousness.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Inside Look by a Minister of Church Life, April 25, 2003

By 

Paula D. Matuskey (Ellicott City, MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Grace: A Memoir (Hardcover)

This book gives us a glimpse about what it means to be a minister in a church. Too often people think it's a Sunday only job. This author shows that no matter how hard you try, you find yourself personally engaged with your congregation, and you suffer along with them--their losses, etc. This book to me seemed similar to Nora Gallagher's book on parish life which was published a couple of years ago. It's generally speaking an easy read, although wrenching at times, because of the struggles the author confronts. Yet I feel it's honest and well worth the time to read.