Engaging With the Culture and Our Faith through Non-Catholic Books
By Victoria Mastrangelo,
Navigating the NYT Best Sellers list or other recommended reading lists can be overwhelming. As Catholics, it can sometimes be hard to separate the wheat from the chaff and to know what stories are worth reading: What stories will nourish us with real meaning? What stories have gained prestige merely for being “edgy” or experimental? In some circles, there are debates about whether Catholics should even read contemporary secular work or if they should just stick to Christian writing and the classics.
Stories are part of the human experience and can relate universal and transcendent truths. Pope Francis reminds us that “no human stories are insignificant or paltry. Since God became story, every human story is, in a certain sense, a divine story.” There are glimmers of the Truth buried in the human experiences that are written in good stories. Contemporary characters are still humans and still ask those same meaningful questions and seek to understand the depth of human experiences just as much as the authors of classical literature. There are still good and, yes, divine, stories being told today.
As women in particular, we want to read stories that explore the complexities of our experience beyond being the love interest or the damsel in distress. We seek stories that tell of the universal human experience but also reflect on it through a female lens. With that in mind, here are a few recent releases that are written by women and feature female main characters to add to your summer reading list. Happy reading!
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Synopsis:
Gifty is a PhD candidate originally from Alabama studying at Stanford when her Ghanian mother is sent to stay with her after suffering a depressive episode. While caring for her mother in the present, Gifty reflects back on her family’s life as Ghanian immigrants in Alabama and the lead-up to the climactic moment in which her brother, Nana, overdosed on oxycontin and died. These memories cause her to reflect on her choice to pursue science and her career researching reward-seeking behavior, addiction, and depression.
Why you should read it:
Gifty’s reflections question the stereotypes and sexist views that are often associated with women pursuing science, women facing mental illness, and women working to balance a career and a family and how it is all compounded by being Black in America or by being an immigrant. These insights are helpful and timely and call into question how much progress we have actually made regarding these various struggles. However, these are not the most interesting questions that Gifty explores.
Gifty grew up in an evangelical church that leaned toward Pentecostal. Growing up, her mother centered their family’s life on the church; however, when Nana’s addiction began, the church was not there for them. Gifty picked up on how quickly their family went from being well-respected church members to community pariahs. When Nana died, no one wanted to talk about it and when her mother fell into a deep depression, the only response they gave was for her to pray more. Gifty looks back at her old prayer journals and struggles with her consistent intercessions for her brother and the lack of any kind of aid that resulted.
In her college years, this led Gifty to give up faith and follow science. Science gives facts, solutions, answers. As a doctoral student, Gifty pursues neuroscience in particular as she tries to find answers to the ailments faced by her family. She wants answers regarding the suffering they have all endured. In the midst of her research, Gifty realizes that the brain can give us answers about what and how regarding the body, but it doesn’t account for the why. It doesn’t answer the bigger questions about meaning and purpose. Ultimately, she reflects, it doesn’t account for what her faith had always called “the soul.”
We have all faced uncertainty and suffering and for many this last year has only compounded it. Many have probably raised similar questions regarding faith and science and medicine. Gifty’s reflections offer some great questions to guide us in our own reckoning of how the answerable and unanswerable can coexist in our lives. While Gifty’s questions reach a natural conclusion within her evangelical background, pushing these questions further as Catholics can help us come to a clearer reconciliation of the two. And if you find yourself searching for deeper answers than Gifty finds, follow up your reading of Transcendent Kingdom with Pope St. John Paul II’s encyclical Fides et Ratio.
The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett
Synopsis:
Inseparable and identical twins Stella and Desiree Vignes grew up in Mallard, Louisiana in the 1960s. After witnessing the lynching of their father and their mother’s tireless efforts working for a white family, they decide to abandon their future in Mallard at the age of sixteen. They leave everything behind and head for New Orleans where they rent an apartment and find jobs and continue to remain inseparable, until one day when Stella doesn’t return to their apartment. The story follows the lives of the Vignes twins and their families through the 1990s as Stella navigates the world “passing” as a white woman and Desiree ends up back home with her mother and daughter. Their stories ask interesting questions about identity, relationships, motherhood, and community.
Why you should read it:
The Vignes sisters’ lives revolve around the question of identity. Who are we really? Can we change it? What happens when we do? What kind of relationships can we have when we change our identity and choose not to reveal who we previously were?
In a world that constantly encourages self-exploration and defining your own identity, the story of Stella Vignes’ life after she decides to start “passing” can shed some light on the consequences of self-invention. It affects every aspect of her life, including how she can react when a Black family moves into her all-white neighborhood. Her relationships with her husband and daughter are tested constantly as she walks the line between what she can and can’t reveal about herself.
Other characters explore this question as well when it comes to questions of sexual identity, returning home with a secret, and growing up trying to fill in the gaps of your own family history.
What makes the central issue of identity so interesting in this book is that Britt Bennett uses it to explore how it affects relationships. What kind of mother and wife can you be when you choose to hide part of who you are at 18? What kind of relationships can you have when you hold onto secrets that affect the next generation? What kind of relationships can you have when you can’t admit who you really are?
When we know that our identity is rooted in the Creator, the knowledge can flow out into our relationships. We are called to then see that same identity in others and to treat them accordingly. Without being anchored in that identity and giving into an ideology of self-invention, there are consequences that ripple not only out into your relationships and community but into the generations to come. To explore a Catholic take on these questions of identity and relationship, read Joe Heschmeyer’s book Who Am I, Lord? Finding Your Identity in Christ.
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
Synopsis:
This novel retells the Trojan War from all of its possible angles. It brings in elements from Virgil’s Aeneid and both Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, all told solely through the perspective of the women involved. Each chapter fills in part of the story from one woman’s perspective including the muse Calliope, the queens Andromache and Helen, the wives of the various warriors, the goddesses whose interventions are at the center of the war, and the letters Penelope writes Odysseus about his rumoured adventures. As the back cover notes, “This is the women’s war, just as much as it is the men’s. They have waited long enough for their turn…”
Why you should read it:
Great epic stories, whether historical or not, often tell of heroes and their extraordinary deeds. This focus often leaves out half of the story—the perspective of women. Natlie Haynes breathes new life into these age-old tales and provides interesting perspectives from the women who were involved in the war or who received the unfortunate consequences of its ending. She explores the relationship between destiny and freedom by asking how free Helen was in her choice to leave Menelaus and go with Paris to Troy. Is she the real reason that these thousand ships were sailed?
On a larger scale, Haynes explores what choices are truly available in a world dominated by men and their egos. Does Penelope wait for Odysseus simply for love of him or is it also a form of self-preservation? How does Andromache navigate the transition from the respect and authority that comes from being the queen of Troy to being a slave of her enemies? In a world in which women have limited options and must constantly play the role designated by their captors to survive, the friendship between women can get complicated. Haynes reflects on this dynamic and the way that small kindnesses and acts of support can be essential in surviving such traumatic events as those surrounding the Trojan War. Overall, Haynes’ perspectives challenge the narrative we’ve inherited about the glories of this epic and asks contemporary questions within this ancient setting. For those who may want to see this approach through a Christian perspective, I would also recommend C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces.
Reading through a Catholic lens
As Catholics, we are told that we are meant to be in the world but not of it. St. Therese of Lisieux reminds us that “the world’s thy ship and not thy home.” Sometimes it feels like the best way to not be part of the world is to simply stay within the realm of the spiritual and the Catholic, especially with the media that we consume. While it may seem more appealing or even more beneficial to our spiritual lives to stick to reading solely Catholic books, by doing so we may miss opportunities for engaging in important and interesting thoughts, questions, and ideas presented in more secular work.
Reading such texts not only gives us a glimpse into what areas we need to engage with in the culture as evangelists, but can also open up a new way for us to view Catholic themes through a secular lens. This has been Bishop Robert Barron’s primary approach to his work through Word on Fire, which began with YouTube video commentaries on contemporary movies. Bishop Barron often writes and speaks about the importance of evangelizing through beauty in order to help people see the good and the true.
Storytelling is a universal medium and is a great way to explore the human experience with its many struggles and triumphs. As the Catholic, and therefore universal, Church there is a lot of beauty to be found in secular stories and that beauty can help us and others find the Truth and Goodness that are God.
