Wesley A. Kort is Professor of Religion at Duke University and the author of Place and Space in Modern Fiction. In this scholarly work, he examines the quest for religious identity in the autobiographical writings of nine contemporary writers including Maya Angelou, Philip Roth, Mary Gordon, Frederick Buechner, Kathleen Norris, and Anne LaMott.
The textual intimacy of those who write freely about their religious experiences is very appealing and revelatory at the same time. In the first section of the book, Kort explicates what he calls the three arenas, the four constituents, and the role of narrative in self-disclosure. This is followed by a discussion of the hazards of autobiography and the complexities of disclosing a religious identity.
Kort divides the nine autobiographical writers into three groups: Religious Debters, Religious Dwellers, and Religious Diviners. The author salutes the strength and resiliency of Maya Angelou's spiritual journey, the ways in which Philip Roth confronts the religious content of his past, the important role of place in the writings of Dan Wakefield, the fluid and expansive religious identity of Kathleen Norris, the illumination Christianity provides for the life of Frederick Buechner, and the capacity of Anne LaMott to receive and rejoice in the help that comes from others. Kort ends the book with an essay on his own religious identity.
