This book covers a decade, from 1958 to 1968. The Trappist monk and the Polish poet and author of The Captive Mind (an analysis of totalitarianism) both feel like outsiders. Merton speaks of himself as a "lone wolf" in the Catholic church and Milosz sees himself as an alien during his years as an emigre in Paris. At one point in their correspondence, the monk writes, "As for you, you are part of my 'church' of friends who are in many ways more important to me than the institution." These missives reveal the truth of that statement as they discuss God, poetry, racism, pacifism, the dire influence of television on children, Communism, and the nature of evil. Anyone interested in that twilight zone where art, theology, poetry, and ethics intermingle will find the dialogue between Merton and Milosz to be edifying.