My current read is Blown by the Same Wind, by poet and writer of detective fiction John Straley. Set in a fly-in fishing village on Alaska’s Pacific Coast in 1968, this novel features a number of improbable characters, most interesting of which is the protagonist “Brother Louis”. (Thomas Merton took the name “Louis” when he professed his monastic vows.)
I am drawn to any crime writer who’d open their book with a quote from Thomas Merton. I did that myself, in The Book of Answers. My novel has subtler Merton connections.
Straley has the courage to allow himself be carried away by the wind of creativity, and make Merton his protagonist. Here is the quote that prefaces the story:
I am carried away by the
same wind
that blows all these people
down the street,
like pieces of paper
and
dead leaves
in all
directions.
(Thomas Merton, My Argument with the Gestapo)
Cold Storage, the remote Alaskan village that is the setting for this book, and several others, seems like the kind of place that people who have been blown by the wind end up.
I was both intrigued and leery when I first heard about this book, which was published in 2022. As an admirer of Merton, I wondered if Straley could pull off the challenge of appropriating such a large and significant personality for fictional purposes. I worried he might resort to sensationalizing the more controversial aspects of Merton’s life for the sake of a story.
As a sometimes contemplative, and trained spiritual director, I also had concerns the author might be clumsy or overly romantic in his depiction of the inner life of a monk.
Straley does not do any of the things I worried about. At least, not so far. I am halfway through, and will keep you posted. To this point, he is presenting his Merton as someone I wouldn’t mind meeting up with in a bar in Cold Storage Alaska, or in my local pub.
Please let us know how this goes. I have been deeply influenced by Merton and love most of all the journals that were published 25 years after his death. In fact (and this is probably the most profound spiritual experience in my life when many, many years ago I was driving the ring road around Nova Scotia and drifted asleep and felt that he woke me, nonexistent hand on my shoulder, before I crossed the center line. So very interested.