Redeemed: A Spiritual Misfit Stumbles Toward God, Marginal Sanity, and the Peace That Passes All Understanding [Hardcover]

Heather King (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 21, 2008

An NPR commentator’s story of an unlikely epiphany and the healing power of faith

After years of sleeping around, working as a waitress, and suffering booze- induced blackouts, Heather King settled into sobriety, marriage, and a financially lucrative but unfulfilling career in a Beverly Hills law firm. As someone who had reached middle age “never believing in much of anything,” she found herself in the last place she thought she’d end up: the Catholic church.

Redeemed describes the steps of King’s journey—from finding herself holed up on the couch reading Hermits of the World (and then wondering why she and her husband weren’t having sex) to dealing with the breast cancer that brought her face-to-face with the Virgin Mary. With the death of her father and the devastation of divorce, she connects with Jesus Christ: “A guy who hung out with lepers, paralytics, the possessed: this is someone I can trust.”

This is a profound, fervent, darkly funny tale of an ongoing conversion by a Catholic who, however devout, is about as far from saintlike as can be imagined. Fans of Lauren Winners’s Girl Meets God and Anne Lamott’s writings will be drawn to King’s refreshing sense of humor, mesmerizing voice, and piercing honesty.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her previous memoir, Parched, King wrote about two decades of squandering my talents, sleeping around, smoking cigarettes, and swilling Sea Breezes at 8 a.m. in Sullivan's Tap, saving her conversion to Catholicism for the epilogue. Here she looks at what she considers the more interesting part of her story (nothing is more boring than degradation)—her everyday life without alcohol, with God and yet still full of struggle and pain. Sometimes I think anyone as drawn as I am to suffering would have had to become a Catholic, she writes. The book starts off as straight memoir: sobriety, frustration, attraction, conversion. In the fifth chapter, however, she shifts to topical essays with a pronounced theological bent. King, familiar to many from her commentaries on NPR's All Things Considered, maintains her signature self-deprecatory humor throughout, at the same time offering readers plenty to chew on as she reflects on her father's death, her bout with breast cancer, the end of her marriage, the importance of humility and the inevitability of loneliness. Though suffering is a constant theme, King's faith sees beyond the pain: heaven is not some other world, but shot all through the broken world where we already live. (Feb. 18)
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Review

“This memoir deserves to be as popular as Elizabeth Gilbert’s best- selling Eat, Pray, Love.”
—The Boston Globe

“Rather than offering easy epiphanies and candy-coated narratives, King’s book is as honest and raw as the model of the spiritual memoir, the “Confessions” of St. Augustine….To witness someone of such emotional dexterity and moral depth struggle is moving and instructive….King is nonjudgmental, generous and insightful about the spiritual journey.”
—Los Angeles Times

“A story with depth, rare balance, humor, and with a near-perfect eye for what is important, true to the perception that ‘sin, degradation, and scandal aren’t that interesting,’ but ‘conversion is.’” A conversion story along the lines of St. Augustine’s classic. You’ll learn how grace works.”
—Ron Rolheiser, author of The Holy Longing and The Restless Heart

“This is really the story of two callings—to faith and to a life’s work…a riveting depiction of a lost soul found”
—Kirkus

“I’m hugely grateful for this ‘misfit,’ and for her words, which I keep copying down into my own misfit notebook. In hard times, Heather King is one of the people of hope.”
—Jean Valentine, National Book Award-winning author of Door in the Mountain

“In its structure and purpose, Heather King’s Redeemed is not unlike St. Augustine’s Confessions. That first Christian conversion narrative, often misconstrued as being an acknowledgment of past sins, is really a confession of faith in God and the luminous praise of a grateful heart. Similarly, in this well-written, insightful and funny book, Heather King, a frequent commentator on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” does not deny her hard life….Rather, she writes an eloquent hymn of gratitude and wonder for her Catholic life.”
—National Catholic Reporter

“King writes from the heart.”
—Rocky Mountain News

“A must-read for anyone on the spiritual journey that defines the essence of learning to live life on life’s terms, while there’s still time.”
—William Cope Moyers, author of Broken

"A brutally honest, moving and heartfelt memoir."
—America, The National Catholic Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (February 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670018635
• ISBN-13: 978-0670018635
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #548,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm an ex-lawyer, a former drunk, and a Catholic convert with three memoirs: Parched (the dark years); Redeemed (crawling toward the light); and Shirt of Flame (out September 1, 2011) (my year of wandering around Koreatown, L.A. "with" St. Therese of Lisieux, a cloistered 19th-c. French nun).

I blog at Shirt of Flame: Musings on Los Angeles, The Writing Life, Divine Intoxication, and the Thin Line Between Passion and Pathology (shirtofflame.blogspot.com)--which gives you a pretty good idea of my interests and approach.

For a complete list of publications, contact info, upcoming events, etc., check out heather-king.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lapsed Catholic, and I love this book..., April 1, 2008

By 

Kerry Madden "Kerry Madden" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Redeemed: A Spiritual Misfit Stumbles Toward God, Marginal Sanity, and the Peace That Passes All Understanding (Hardcover)

I read REDEEMED all the way home on a flight from Alabama, and it was a book I hated to see end...I could pick it up and read it all over again. Reading Heather King's words is like having coffee with a best friend who listens, makes you laugh, think, and hope again. Her honesty is real and alive - and so her is capacity for joy and forgiveness. Her words make a person want to be better - to live better and more fully. I cannot recommend REDEEMED highly enough. It is a beautiful beautiful book of honesty and painful hilarity from husbands to sisters to awful people at work. It's just great. It even makes me want to forgive my idiot neighbor and his barking dogs and maybe even go back to church. I am very grateful that Heather King's books are in the world.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful Writing, Fun, and (Almost) Made Me Want to Go Back to Church Too!, May 19, 2008

By 

O. Brown "Ms. O. Khannah-Brown" (Twopeas, WA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Redeemed: A Spiritual Misfit Stumbles Toward God, Marginal Sanity, and the Peace That Passes All Understanding (Hardcover)

*****
I truly loved Heather King's new book, which was fun, funny, and touching all at the same time. I haven't been back to church in years but it made me want to go too. Just to experience community the way the author does, imperfectly, struggling, with love and humor and authenticity all bundled up together.

This book is also about being a writer, an alcoholic, and a human being. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone. I would especially recommend it to those readers who are looking to have a less negative view of Christianity (this is me) and who want to read about faith from a gritty, grounded, and grace-based perspective.

It made me laugh and the beauty of the writing had me highlighting passages to refer back to later. It's an honest and real book about just being alive.

Highly recommended.
*****

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful!, August 6, 2008

By 

B. M. Paluch "Brandon" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Redeemed: A Spiritual Misfit Stumbles Toward God, Marginal Sanity, and the Peace That Passes All Understanding (Hardcover)

Heather King's book is a gem for anybody looking for grace in their own lives. I am a cradle Catholic and to read about Heather's embrace of Catholicism and reverence for its attitude towards life and mystery was truly refreshing. She shares her own story, struggles, obsessions, and insights with her readers. After reading her book, I felt more connected, understood, and whole as a person and as a Catholic. Heather has a tremendous gift of radical honesty and an eye for humor in what seem to be dark situations. She has an intuition for grace and a wonderfully poetic way of seeing daily life and expressing its beauty. Redeemed is a wonderful book in which I found part of myself and part of God.