The Fine Delight

""Where are all the Catholic writers? is a popular question these days. In his beautifully realized new book The Fine Delight, Nicholas Ripatrazone offers an answer: they are among us, writing. With skill and care, he explores the artistry of three superb writers--Ron Hansen, Paul Mariani, and Andre Dubus--as well as several other contemporary Catholic authors. In the process he reveals . . . how reading can be sacramental, enabling us to discover God's presence in our modern world."" --James Martin, SJ, author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything ""The Fine Delight is a text of scholarship and personal consideration of American literature that is marked by and built from postconciliar Catholic thought. Nicholas Ripatrazone has written a highly readable study of the work of writers whose beliefs vary widely, but who share a living engagement with the Word. This book itself is just such an engagement. It will inspire more informed and curious reading."" --Alice Elliott Dark, author of In the Gloaming: Stories ""Nicholas Ripatrazone offers an insightful interrogation into the theological and aesthetic strategies of contemporary Catholic writers--novelists, poets, and essayists writing in the last fifty years. Aware that the Catholic imagination is not static, he suggests helpful ways to understand how post-Vatican II writers situate their faith in light of their artistic vision. A timely book, Ripatrazone helps extend the critical and pastoral implications of a Catholic literary aesthetic."" --Mark Bosco, SJ, author of Graham Greene's Catholic Imagination Nick Ripatrazone is the author of three books: Oblations (prose poems, 2011), This Is Not About Birds (poems, 2012), and This Darksome Burn (novella, 2013). His writing has received honors from Esquire, The Kenyon Review, and ESPN: The Magazine. He teaches literature at Rutgers University.