"How did writers Joe Eszterhas, Anne Rice, and Heather King go from mocking religious belief to embracing it?"


Thomas S. Hibbs of The Catholic World Report has the story:


"The Improbable"


Adapted from the February 2009 edition.


"What is unusual about Eszterhas' life is that his recovery entailed more than checking into a posh rehab center [Mel Gibson, take note! :) ].

"It involved conversion to the Catholic Church, as he details in his new book, Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith.

"Along with Anne Rice's Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession and Heather King's Redeemed: A Spiritual Misfit Stumbles Toward God, Marginal Sanity and the Peace that Passes Understanding, Eszterhas' book is one of three very interesting Catholic conversion memoirs published recently.

"The paths that led each of these individuals to embrace the Catholic faith are irreducibly distinct and compellingly specific, yet the lives described, both before and after conversion, share much in common.

"All three were successful by worldly standards: Eszterhas and Rice as famous authors and King as a lawyer and aspiring writer.

"Yet their conversions had nothing to do with embracing a Gospel of Success, so fashionable in our culture.

"They had to give up their aspirations for achievement, at least as they had previously pursued it, in order to follow Christ.

"They had to accept the hard truth that, in the words of Flannery O'Connor quoted by King, Success means nothing to the Lord, nor gracefulness.

"How did such individuals, who had seen no need for God and even mocked religious belief, come to this realization?

"There appear to be two reasons, one negative and the other positive..."

You bet! And it all just keeps getting better as the story cruises on....:)