Book Talk AN EVENING WITH AMY TAN ... Best-selling author Amy Tan of “The Joy Luck Club,” “The Kitchen God’s Wife” and others (including “The Bonesetter’s Daughter,” for which she also wrote the opera libretto), will speak at the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center at 3921 Fabian Way in Palo Alto on April 11. Tan will be in conversation with author Louann Brizendine at the event, which runs from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Tickets are $30 general, $25 for students and JCC members, and $22 for residents of the Moldaw complex at the center. Go to paloaltojcc.org or call 650-223-8699.
BOOKS INC. ... Future author talks at Books Inc. at Palo Alto’s Town & Country Village include: Cara Black, “Murder Below Montparnasse” (March 16, 6 p.m.); Jennifer Nielsen and Lisa McMann, “The False Prince” and “The Trap Door,” respectively (March 20, 6:30 p.m.); Michael Lavigne, “The Wanting” (March 28, 7 p.m.); emeritus Stanford University professor of psychiatry and human biology Herant Katchadourian, “The Way it Turned Out” (April 3, 7 p.m.); Harry Brod, “Superman is Jewish?” (April 10, 7 p.m.); and Caroline M. Grant and Lisa Catherine Harper, “The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage” (April 11, 7 p.m.). Info: booksinc.net N
Items for Book Talk may be sent to Associate Editor Carol Blitzer, Palo Alto Weekly, P.O. Box 1610, Palo Alto, CA 93202 or emailed to cblitzer@paweekly.com by the last Friday of the month.
A monthly section on local books and authors
“Not Less Than Everything: Catholic Writers on Heroes of Conscience, from Joan of Arc to Oscar Romero,” edited by Catherine Wolff; HarperOne; 352 pages; $16.99 hatever else you might think about “Not Less Than Everything,” a new book of essays by Catholic writers edited by Catherine Wolff, you have to admit this much: It is spectacularly well timed. The book was released by Harper One, the spiritual wing of Harper Collins, in mid-February, sandwiched between the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, ostensibly for health reasons, and the resignation of Britain’s highest-ranking Catholic leader amid accusations of sexual misconduct. Subsequent weeks have brought stories of infighting, financial malfeasance and a secret gay cabal within the Roman Curia (the Vatican bureaucracy that oversees the central governance of the church). The fact that many of these stories lack credible sources has not lessened the public perception that the church is in a state of crisis. All of these events occurred after Wolff, a lifelong Catholic, composed her introduction to “Not Less Than Everything,” in which she laments the church’s “lack of transparency and accountability,” its “increasingly isolated” hierarchy, its refusal “to welcome women into full membership and leadership,” its “retrograde ... teachings on human sexuality,” and its failure to respond to “the legitimate demands of the society in which we live.” Like many modern Catholics who have come to question the moral authority of those who — at least nominally — lead the church, Wolff began to look elsewhere for spiritual leadership and inspiration, for historical role models who had possessed the courage to find their own solutions to the age-old conflict between conscience and authority. Ultimately, she solicited essays from a number of notable Catholic writers (some, professional theologians who happen to write; others, established novelist or essayists who happen to be Catholic), asking each to submit a portrait of his or her own “hero of conscience.” The resulting collection presents 26 such portraits, personal meditations on the lives of exceptional men and women of faith, from such well-known historical figures as Mary Magdalene and Ignatius of Loyola to such 20th-century champions of social justice as Simone Weil, Charles Strobel and Father Horace McKenna. Along the way, we meet Bartolomé de las Casas, perhaps the first Spaniard to decry the systematic slaughter of the West Indian native peoples by conquistadors hungry for land and gold; Mother
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Mary MacKillop, Australia’s first saint, excommunicated in 1871 after exposing child sexual abuse by local clergy; and Sister Corita Kent, an irrepressible teacher and painter who turned the pop art of the 1960s into something holy. With so many essays on a single theme, it’s not surprising to find a certain uniformity creeping into the offerings. Many of the essayists have limited themselves to writing straightforward biographical sketches, and many of these sketches have the same basic shape: A young man/woman converts to Catholicism, becomes a priest/ nun/Jesuit brother/etc., offends the church hierarchy by advocating a position that is too modern/socialist/American/etc., is summoned to Rome and ordered to renounce said position, refuses to conform and is subsequently censured/excommunicated/moved to an unappealing parish/ etc. (Alternatively, one could blame this monotony not so much on the contributing writers as on the Vatican’s woefully predictable response to principled dissent.) The most memorable essays in the bunch, though, are
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MUSINGS In a new collection of essays, Catholic writers look at heroes of conscience, present and past by Kevin Kirby
Courtesy of Catherine Wolff
MEET THE AUTHORS ... Upcoming authors and programs at Keplers, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, include: Alan Rinzler, “Top Ten Problems in Submitting Your Work and How to Fix Them” (March 16, 1 p.m.); Jonathan and Margaret Kathrein with Wallace “J” Nichols, “Surviving the Shark: How a Brutal Great White Attack Turned a Surfer into a Dedicated Defender of Sharks” (March 21, 7:30 p.m.); Ellen Sussman, “The Paradise Guest House” (March 26, 7:30 p.m.); Palo Alto resident Navi Radjou, “Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth” (March 27, 7:30 p.m.); Natalie Goldberg, “The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life with Language” (March 28, 7:30 p.m.); Robin LaFevers, “Dark Triumph” (April 2, 7:30 p.m.); Anita Hughes, “Market Street” (April 3, 7:30 p.m.); Peter Spiers, “Master Class: Living Longer, Stronger and Happier” (April 4, 6:30 p.m.); Amanda Coplin, “The Orchardist” (April 9, 7:30 p.m.); and Caroline Paul and Wendy McNaughton, “Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation and GPS” (April 11, 7:30 p.m.). In addition, Cassandra Clare will speak on her teen book “Clockwork Princess” at the Menlo-Atherton High School Performing Arts Center at 555 Middlefield Road in Atherton at 7 p.m. March 23. Info: keplers.com
Title Pages Editor Catherine Wolff. those that move beyond mere biography to explore the writer’s own relationship to his or her subject, as when Tobias Wolff (Stanford professor and husband of editor Catherine) compares his own experience as a U.S. serviceman during the Vietnam War to the life of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian conscientious objector during WWII. Jägerstätter chose execution in a Nazi prison rather than serve in Hitler’s army. In contrast, Wolff gives an admirably candid account of his own reasons for participating in a conflict about which he harbored serious doubts: “It did not meet the test of a just and necessary war, or even one we were likely to win. But I stifled my doubts, because I was going, and doubt would do me no good there. ... And, frankly, I was curious. What would it be like? War is interesting to young men — even to those who oppose it.” Another striking entry is Kathryn Harrison’s portrait of Joan of Arc, in which she contrasts Joan’s famous visions with her own shattering moment of epiphany while walking the labyrinth at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral. As Tobias Wolff does, Harrison goes beyond the factual details of her subject’s life to ask the thornier and potentially more enlightening questions: What is it that allows a hero to be a hero? How was this person different from everyone else? What are we to do when confronted with stories such as these? Saint Joan and the beatified J‰gerst‰tter notwithstanding, this is not a “lives of the saints” book. Fewer than a third of the individuals profiled herein have been canonized. One of them, the formidable Hildegard von Bingen, was finally raised to sainthood last year by Benedict XVI, more than eight centuries after her death. Some, like Dorothy Day or Oscar Romero, may someday be similarly elevated. Others, though, had precious little