the great good thing -- a book review

Andrew Klavan's The Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Come to Faith in Christ sets out the story of how a secular Jewish artist and intellectual from New York wind up on his knees before the baptismal font at age 50.  The journey reads like an Andrew Klavan story, perhaps the best yet because it is the Andrew Klavan story.  All of the narrative elements that fill his more than thirty novels and films become even more vivid in his first nonfiction book because we know them to be not only artistically profound but literally true -- a strong male protagonist in the tough guy tradition struggles against not merely flesh and blood but also "principalities, powers, and the darkness of this world".

Klavan's telling of his own descent into suicidal madness and ultimate recovery constitute the book's greatest narrative achievement, as he coherently describes his own incoherence.  But the book's most beautiful passage depicts a mystical experience with his beloved wife Ellen during the birth of their daughter.  The memoir keeps in balance Klavan's intellectual and literary journey with his brilliant illustration of numinous, ineffable experiences, and this harmony leaves the reader with an impression often lacking in the genre:  Namely, a broad, comprehensive view of spiritual conversion.

The Great Good Thing is a masterful telling of what that view of spiritual conversion looks like.  It's an inspiring book that was a real joy to read.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers <http://booklookbloggers.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”