Share <Embed>

Buy New

$8.79

List Price: $18.00
Save: $9.21 (51%)

$8.79

Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

Ships from and sold by Urban Books.

This item does not ship to France. Please check other sellers who may ship internationally.

Deliver to France

Added to

Unable to add item to List. Please try again.

Other Sellers on Amazon

Add to Cart

$12.07

Sold by: *Lyon Books*

Add to Cart

$16.60

Sold by: Wordery USA

Add to Cart

$18.00
& FREE Shipping on eligible orders. Details

Sold by: Amazon.com

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 3 images

The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage Paperback – March 10, 2004

by Paul Elie (Author)

75 customer reviews

See all 13 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$9.20

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$20.14

$7.23

$0.25

Paperback

"Please retry"

$8.79

$2.00

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Audio CD, Audiobook, CD, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$23.17

—

The story of four modern American Catholics who made literature out of their search for God

In the mid-twentieth century four American Catholics came to believe that the best way to explore the questions of religious faith was to write about them-in works that readers of all kinds could admire. The Life You Save May Be Your Own is their story-a vivid and enthralling account of great writers and their power over us.

Thomas Merton was a Trappist monk in Kentucky; Dorothy Day the founder of the Catholic Worker in New York; Flannery O'Connor a "Christ-haunted" literary prodigy in Georgia; Walker Percy a doctor in New Orleans who quit medicine to write fiction and philosophy. A friend came up with a name for them-the School of the Holy Ghost-and for three decades they exchanged letters, ardently read one another's books, and grappled with what one of them called a "predicament shared in common."

A pilgrimage is a journey taken in light of a story; and in The Life You Save May Be Your Own Paul Elie tells these writers' story as a pilgrimage from the God-obsessed literary past of Dante and Dostoevsky out into the thrilling chaos of postwar American life. It is a story of how the Catholic faith, in their vision of things, took on forms the faithful could not have anticipated. And it is a story about the ways we look to great books and writers to help us make sense of our experience, about the power of literature to change-to save-our lives.

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

James Baldwin

413

in Literary Letters
Paperback
$12.56

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

James Baldwin

413

in Literary Letters
Paperback
$12.56

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Paul Elie's book is lucid, humane, poignant, and wise. As a work of the spirit, it is universal and in no way sectarian.” ―Harold Bloom

“They make a memorable quartet--Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy--in Paul Elie's brilliant new study. Founder of the Catholic Worker movement, Dorothy Day finally emerges as a saintly and heroic figure. Though I thought I knew everything about the other three, who were my close friends in our author-editor rapport, Elie's insights into each member of this highly gifted and complex trio (Merton, O'Connor, Percy) strike me as fresh and original and his discoveries are new. The Life You Save May Be Your Own is a remarkable book.” ―Robert Giroux

“Paul Elie's book reads like a magnificent novel, with four deeply distinct characters who just happen to have been the best Catholic American writers of the twentieth century.” ―Richard Rodriguez

“We are surrounded by many examples of mediocre criticism and not a few of good criticism, but great criticism comes our way but once or twice in a generation. Paul Elie's witty searchlight of a book is great criticism. Shining with insight on the multitesselated mosaic of American literature in the postwar period, it manages miraculously to illuminate the complexities of religious experience in real human lives.” ―Thomas Cahill

About the Author

Paul Elie, an editor at FSG, has written for The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, and Commonweal. He lives in Manhattan.

Paperback: 554 pages
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Reprint edition (March 10, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0374529213
ISBN-13: 978-0374529215
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.6 x 8.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 75 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #255,185 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #732 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Regional & Cultural > United States
- #1678 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Authors
- #2757 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Catholicism

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?
If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?

Be the first video

Your name here

Try the Kindle edition and experience these great reading features:

See Kindle Edition

75 customer reviews

1 star (0%)

Review this product

Write a customer review

Showing 1-4 of 75 reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Parapluie

A well researched and painstakingly documented text

June 28, 2014

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This book is definitely not a page-turner, but the scholarship is outstanding and the author provides a nice encapsulation of the careers, lives, writings, and philosophies of the four individuals treated, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Walker Percy, and Mary Flannery O'Connor. Personally, I would have preferred a much more closely edited version and believe rather strongly that Elie could have gotten his message across more effectively in less words. I found myself scanning over many of the pages, especially those dealing with Walker Percy, whose philosophy, writings, and life achievements appear dwarfed compared to those of, say, Merton or Day, who are far and away the towering figures in this book. Flannery O'Connor, the eccentric in the group, was well presented, and I found her to be, in many respects, more interesting than the other three individuals. That said, I think the author's best work was in his treatment of Merton. This was enough to spark my interest in the man, and I am now in the process of reading his The Seven Storey Mountain. My thanks Paul Elie for the substantial amount of research and hard work he put into this project.

6 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Innocent Bystander

Cultural Mind-Mapping at its very very best!

June 13, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I am listening to this through Audible on my ECHO
and listening on my Ipad. Now, I want the book...
as a cross reference to the listening. I had this book
but wasn't ripe enough to read it. And now, I can listen
longer than I can read so the new format of Audible is
perfect! and with ECHO I can fill the house while I putter
or simply celebrate thru the art of listening.
This is a HUGE undertaking...and conceptually a mind mapping
of the best and brightest who have had an influence on many of
my generation.
First, I am grateful to the author... whatever grace shook you into
starting sustained you to complete it.
Second, the Audible format (and range of listening options) allows
me to sustain my engagement with work of this magnitude.
Third, the book will help me to index the audio chapters... in a way
that isn't possible otherwise.
Also... the 'voice' of the reader has a resonance with the material
that is authentic and consistent across hour after hour... truly amazing.

The organization of the material across each Pilgrim... is brilliant and
makes the Mind-Mapping deeply spiritual while being historically composed.
Perhaps, I am just now ripe enough myself to appreciate this...
I don't think so... though a listening heart would be an asset.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Amazon Customer

Great read! Informative and inspirational

May 31, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Great read! Informative and inspirational, Paul Elie blends the lives of four well known Catholic lives into one gripping and fast moving book.
The book is good for readers who are familiar with these writers and also for those not familiar. So far, I have learned many new facts about each writer. More importantly the book offers an inner look at the religious convictions of each: Percy, OConnor, Merton and Day.
Outstanding read.

Helpful

Comment

toronto

Literary Pilgrimage

October 20, 2012

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is one of those books, like The Metaphysical Club, that enlightens about a whole period and ties together people one has read separately. As someone who grew up in the generation after these writers, the book is a key to the thought patterns of my own elders. The least of the figures here is Walker Percy, who, really, only wrote one masterful work (The Moviegoer), and seems to have been not very interesting. The others are powerful persons in their own right. The ones I know best are Merton and Day, and Elie does an excellent job with them and their lives. One strand of the period that is not quite emphasized as much as it could have been (though it is there) is the resurgence of medieval philosophy as an alternative to Descartes and modern philosophy generally. This would have tightened the references to Aquinas, Marcel, etc., and even allowed for Heidegger to make an appearance. It would have heightened the strangeness of the Kierkegaard/Dostoyevsky/Hopkins/Scotus/Aquinas synthesis that seemed so prevalent among Catholic intellectuals in the 60s. (You can find it even in figures like Marshall McLuhan). Another strand could have been the rise of archetypal philosophy (Suzanne Langer gets a brief mention), which moved people like Pollock from surrealism to universalism. But you can't have everything.

The footnotes are an education in themselves!!!

Helpful

Comment

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway

This item: The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage

Set up a giveaway

Pages with related products. See and discover other items: historical fiction early england, classical art

Buy New

$8.79

Other Sellers on Amazon

The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage Paperback – March 10, 2004

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Customers who bought this item also bought

Sponsored products related to this item (What's this?)

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

Related Video Shorts (0)

Be the first video

Sponsored products related to this item (What's this?)

Try the Kindle edition and experience these great reading features:

75 customer reviews

Review this product

Read reviews that mention

Showing 1-4 of 75 reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Buy New $8.79

Sorry, there was a problem.

Sorry, there was a problem.

Other Sellers on Amazon

The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage Paperback – March 10, 2004

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Customers who bought this item also bought

Sponsored products related to this item (What's this?)

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

Related Video Shorts (0)

Be the first video

Sponsored products related to this item (What's this?)

Try the Kindle edition and experience these great reading features:

75 customer reviews

Review this product

Read reviews that mention

Showing 1-4 of 75 reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Buy New

$8.79