Many of us know that the work of Roman Catholic literary artists like Francois Mauriac and Flannery O'Connor pervaded European and North American public culture in the last century. But where are today's Catholic writers? One answer to this searching question lies in two recent novels, Daniel Hornsby's 'Via Negativa" and Edmund White's "A Saint from Texas," which explore issues linked to troubled faith and convent piety, economic privation and social justice, and ancient mysticism as well as emergent identities. Silver Frogs will discuss these two stories, which may be read as instructive examples of how post-Vatican II writers articulate discipleship's demands in light of their imagination.
