NIGHT’S BRIGHT DARKNESS
A Modern Conversion Story
Sally Read
Ignatius Press, 2016, 152 pages.
by Teresa Limjoco
he was a liberated Englishwoman,
and her unlikely conversion to Catholicism began when she decided to write a “handbook” about the vagina and present “just the facts” to the reader.
This quietly stunning memoir by poet Sally Read is one of the most beautifully written conversion stories to date. There is an economy and eloquence to the writing that reflects Read’s skills as poet.
Her words draw you in, and as if by sorcery, cease to exist on the printed page; instead, you soon find yourself lost inside the scenes, the characters, the colors and emotions vividly evoked in your mind.
Divided into five chapters – The Father, The Spirit, The Son, The Mother, and The Mystery – it is a work suffused with love, and with a longing - the kind of achiness suffered by a loved one in desperate pursuit of an unseen yet overwhelming Lover, this commanding yet gentle Being, who has drawn this staunchly atheistic modern woman completely unto Himself.
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