A review by davidewright_philosophy
The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage by Paul Elie

5.0

This is a fantastic book and I found it revelatory for all four of the book's subjects (O'Connor, Day, Merton, and Percy) and American Catholicism in the 20th century. To move in time with each of these four people and keep drawing together themes and historical intersections for each writer must have been a tremendous undertaking and one fraught with difficulty--though I think Elie succeeds strikingly well. One virtue of the book was that it never spent too long on discussing any particular person, so if I was feeling annoyed or frustrated with one person, I wouldn't have to read too much longer until the discussion would shift to someone else. Also, while I can claim no expertise on any of the four subjects, I found Elie's engagement with the narratives employed by other biographers of these to be thoughtful and helpful in terms of giving me tropes and easy but false explanations/interpretations that I should watch for if I read any other biographies of these subjects. Overall, I would say that if someone has an interest in any one of these four people, then that person should consider reading this book as that person will come more substantial and complex as one sees how they related to the other three and the challenges of their respective lifetimes.