Baldwin's writing offers critiques of religion, culture, and discrimination, and in the witness of his life he holds up hope and the primacy of love despite all the difficulties of the present moment. In this passionate introduction, Garrett presents the life and work of Baldwin in all his writing genres, on themes of equity, justice, and reconciliation.

Garrett followed in Baldwin's footsteps--from New York City to the American South, from the cafes of St.-Germain in Paris to the mountains of Switzerland, where Baldwin did some of his most important thinking and writing. Garrett consulted critical and cultural studies, as well as archival materials from the recently-inaugurated Baldwin Collection at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. Out of this close study of Baldwin's words and legacy, Garrett invites new readers and longtime lovers of the great Black writer into a thoughtful exploration of his continued relevance.

Book lovers know there is something sacred in the stories, poetry, and insight of even the most secular books. This 365-day devotional celebrates the beauty of literature and its ability to illuminate elements of the Divine, present all around us. Pairing excerpts from more than two hundred literary works with thought-provoking Scriptures and brief prayers, this spiritual guide invites readers to draw closer to God through the words of both classic and modern authors.

Spider-Man. Batman. The X-Men. The Fantastic Four. Comic books and the characters they have spawned have become twenty-first-century mythology. Greg Garrett helps us see the profound depth that can be found in the glossy, fast-paced, and often violent world of comics, graphic novels, and the films they inspire. Holy Superheroes provides extensive discussions of some of our most beloved comic heroes and concludes with an appendix of twenty-five comics and graphic novels for discussion of spirituality and comics.

From the beginning, American cinema has been both a powerful mythmaker and a social critic. D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation, arguably the first feature film, shows us just how early in its history cinema had established its influence. In 1915 it was the first movie to be screened at the White House. After the screening, President Woodrow Wilson is rumored to have said, It's like history writ with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all terribly true. Birth of a Nation famously portrayed the Klu Klux Klan in a favorable light, a portrayal that contributed to the modern resurgence of the group and brought racist depictions of African Americans imported from the minstrel show to the silver screen. Such white fantasies of black American life have played out on our movie screens for the last century. In response, filmmakers of color have created nuanced and indelible portraits of race, as in Ava DuVernay's Selma or Barry Jenkin's Moonlight. Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman shows us just how far into our culture Birth of a Nation has reached.

In this powerful new book, Greg Garrett brings his signature brand of theologically motivated cultural criticism to bear on this history. After more than a century of cinema, he argues, movies have altered our cultural perspectives in the same way that religious narratives have. And in fact, religious traditions offer powerful correctives to our cultural narratives. A Long, Long Way incorporates both cinematic and religious truth-telling to the subject of race and reconciliation. In acknowledging the racist history of America's national art form, Garrett offers the possibility of hope for the future.

Veteran TV journalist Calvin Jones travels to Paris, where he negotiates love, friendship, and despair in award-winning novelist Greg Garrett's Bastille Day.

With brilliant pacing and gorgeous prose, acclaimed novelist Greg Garrett tells the story of American TV journalist Calvin Jones, who travels to Paris to work with a producer friend he knows from their dark days covering the war in Iraq.

Cal Jones has had a quiet ten years, by design. After surviving the loss of two people he loved in the Iraq war, which he covered as a national correspondent, he fell apart and retreated to a local news job in Texas. Cal is still wrestling with those old demons when he goes to Paris to work with an old friend and encounters Nadia, a brilliant, lovely, and sad Saudi Muslim woman in Paris with plans to wed a Saudi sheikh in a family-arranged marriage.

Against his own better judgment, Cal falls for Nadia, even dragging her from the Seine when she attempts to solve her insoluble problem by taking her own life. He begins to risk a heart he thought was too badly broken to ever love again, and as the wedding ticks closer, to hope that perhaps Nadia can make a choice that includes him. Then their time rescuing each other is interrupted by the terror attack in Nice, which Cal is called out to cover. Back in that setting, Cal is thrown back into the memories of senseless violence and extremism that shattered him in Iraq--and that threaten to shatter him and his hopes now. Garrett's characters wrestle with the ghosts of their pasts, as they long for love, friendship, and faith in the present. Bastille Day is a gloriously-affecting novel about how our histories can damage us, but hope can heal us.

In an unforgettable first novel that the Austin Chronicle calls funny, surprising, deep, and soulful, Greg Garrett takes readers along on one man's cross-country pilgrimage from North Carolina to New Mexico; from the depths of despair to a glimmer of hope gleaned from the last place he ever expected to find redemption... With a beautiful wife, a sweet young son, and a position as one of the most promising associates in one of DC's largest firms, Clay Forester had it all. But that was a decade ago, before a tragic accident claimed his family's lives, sending Clay on a downward emotional spiral from which he has no desire to recover... Ensconced once again in his mother's house in his tiny southern hometown, wallowing in guilt, Clay has no responsibilities, no schedules, nobody to be accountable to. He has nothing but his haunting memories, and a half-hearted relationship with a high school flame. Nothing but his music, crooning cover tunes with a childhood friend in smoky redneck bars. Nothing but a yellow 1961 Triumph convertible that refuses to start-Clay's one memento of the father who abandoned him. As far as Clay's concerned, he's hit rock bottom... Then comes the shocking phone call: Steve Forrester, the father Clay always assumed was dead, really is-but only since yesterday. Unmoved by the news that he died with Clay's name on his lips, Clay only wants to forget the man ever existed. But when the Triumph's engine mysteriously turns over that very day, he can't ignore the strange coincidence. Reluctantly, Clay sets out in his father's car, headed to Santa Fe for the funeral of a virtual stranger. It's to be a solo journey, but Clay is soon joined by an irresistible three-legged flatulent dog and, at various stops along the way, by an assortment of down-and-out strangers whose shared hopes and dreams give new purpose to his own pilgrimage. As he closes in on his destination, Clay is forced to confront not just the ghost of the father he never knew, but the ghost of the man he himself once was. As murky, long-buried details tumble into the bright southwestern sunlight, Clay begins to understand, at last, that a man's priorities can become muddled along the way; that a man who should have had everything can suddenly find himself alone. And that only if he finds it in his heart to forgive his father's sins can he ever begin to forgive his own...

According to recent surveys, many Americans associate the label Christian with judgmental attitudes, hypocrisy, a fear of hell, and a commitment to right-wing politics. Author Greg Garrett suggests another way, arguing that a faith that focuses solely on personal morality and the afterlife misses much of the point of Jesus' message.

This other way of following Christ is not concerned with an array of commandments or with holding the right beliefs. Rather it is centered on loving each other and loving God, what Garrett calls love where the rubber meets the road, where faith meets the world.

Personal and moving, the book relates Garrett's experiences growing up in--and leaving--a disapproving conservative church and then finding his way back into a different kind of Christian community, one that is communal, missional, just, and loving. Garrett draws on popular culture to illustrate his spiritual points, showing how authentic Christian truth can be found in unlikely places.

Who among us has not experienced hearing a song that moved us deeply, that spoke to us in a truly spiritual way? Millions of fans around the world have found that inspiration in the music of U2, arguably the biggest band in the world today. This engaging and informative book examines the spirituality that drives U2, a band whose influence has spread far beyond music and whose songs encourage listeners to put their faith into action for the sake of the poor and marginalized.

This book will thrill movie buffs and casual fans alike. In an engaging style, author Greg Garrett looks at the theological elements in dozens of classic and new classic Hollywood films, including a discussion about what the new openness to spirituality in the movies might mean for the future of American cinema and American religion.

Where is God in the midst of suffering? How do people find strength and comfort in times of terrible adversity? Award-winning writer Greg Garrett addresses these questions and others as he helps readers grapple with the question of where God can be found in times of tragedy. He explores the theological themes of biblical stories and American myths and discusses how these stories have shaped our beliefs about God. He further examines what these foundational narratives reveal about our understanding of God, how they inform how we live our lives, and how we experience God's presence in the midst of grief and suffering. This well-written volume is engaging reading for clergy, chaplains, pastoral counselors, and all who must find the courage and faith to support individuals and families in times of suffering and grief.

One of the most beloved stories in history, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series topped the best-seller charts, inspired the highest-grossing film series of all time, and has now become a $250 million Universal Studio theme park. What is it about this story that has ignited such fandom and struck such a chord with people around the world? As English professor, culture critic, and Potter devotee Greg Garrett explains, these novels not only entertain but teach deeply held truths about ourselves, others, and the world around us. Unlocking the textual intricacies behind the Harry Potter narrative, Garrett reveals Rowling's magical formula--one that, he contends, earns her a place right next to the literary giants of old.

The old way of being church is being replaced by something new and beautiful for those with the eyes, ears, heart, and soul to experience it.

Prolific author Greg Garrett reminds Episcopalians of the many gifts that our tradition can offer a doubting and hurting world. He reveals a church that values intellect, beauty, diversity, and community, and promotes thoughtful engagement with questions of faith, ethics, and community. This church espouses a generous orthodoxy, welcoming left and right, mystic and doubter. It values education, social justice, and engagement with
literature and culture. And in opposition to the radical individualism espoused by most of American Protestantism, it offers the unique gift of a tradition shaped by English culture that believes the individual is a part of her or his community-not in opposition to it.

Brad Cannon is charming. And that's the problem. At the tender age of thirty, Brad is on the road to becoming a footnote in his own life. His professors and publishers alike have been salivating for the indifferent wunderkind's next big book, thanks in large part to the surprise Civil War bestseller he wrote while in his twenties. The problem is that he isn't writing it--not a word in five years. Instead, he chooses to spend his days biking along hot Texas roads, eating chicken-fried steak with his baseball-philosopher buddies, and courting a series of women whose lives he seems to drift in and out of like the tide. If anything gets to be too real, Brad can always hop on his bike and escape, pedaling fast past a life dotted with broken relationships, missed opportunities, and family tragedies so potent their memory still has the power to wound. It's those deeply painful losses that hide beneath Brad's Peter Pan act. But now, the years of frantic white lies are taking their toll. Brad's carefully compartmentalized life is starting to fall apart in a messy, very public way from which there's no escape. For Brad has violated his own rule--he has started to care, setting himself on a collision course with a love that could jeopardize what he's taken for granted, forcing him to fight for the very thing that could destroy him--or save him. Evoking Nick Hornby, Walker Percy, and Richard Ford--but with an affable, quirky Texas charm all his own--Greg Garrett has created a masterful meditation on love and loss, sorrow and survival--a heart-wrenching ride toward the tiny, tenuous connections that hold the promise of redemption.

The holidays are always hard--especially for families that still fight their ancient battles every Christmas. This year, Tom is determined not to let his parents ruin his trip to visit them both by spending all their time condemning each other. His parents, though, might have different plans. Will Tom survive Christmas? Will he find the strength to make some plans for the future? Or will this holiday find him as beaten down by his family and afraid to commit as every previous one? Minuet won the William Faulkner Pirate's Alley Prize for Fiction.

Honest story of pain, heart-ache, and hope

When humankind faces what it perceives as a threat to its very existence, a macabre thing happens in art, literature, and culture: corpses begin to stand up and walk around. The dead walked in the fourteenth century, when the Black Death and other catastrophes roiled Europe. They walked in images from World War I, when a generation died horribly in the trenches. They walked in art inspired by the Holocaust and by the atomic attacks on Japan. Now, in the early twenty-first century, the dead walk in stories of the zombie apocalypse, some of the most ubiquitous narratives of post-9/11 Western culture. Zombies appear in popular movies and television shows, comics and graphic novels, fiction, games, art, and in material culture including pinball machines, zombie runs, and lottery tickets.

The zombie apocalypse, Greg Garrett shows us, has become an archetypal narrative for the contemporary world, in part because zombies can stand in for any of a variety of global threats, from terrorism to Ebola, from economic uncertainty to ecological destruction. But this zombie narrative also brings us emotional and spiritual comfort. These apocalyptic stories, in which the world has been turned upside down and protagonists face the prospect of an imminent and grisly death, can also offer us wisdom about living in a community, present us with real-world ethical solutions, and invite us into conversation about the value and costs of survival. We may indeed be living with the living dead these days, but through the stories we consume and the games we play, we are paradoxically learning what it means to be fully alive.

James Baldwin's fiction, essays, criticism, and dramatic writing offer searing critiques of religion, culture, and discrimination that are still timely, but in his writings, and in the witness of his life, Baldwin holds out the possibility of hope and espouses the primacy of love despite the difficulties of a present moment. In the life and work of Baldwin, equity, justice, and reconciliation--while difficult to attain--remain dreams worth pursuing.

This requires us to face our past, he reminds us, our actual history, so that we can move forward together, and this is a universal call from a very particular human writer. In Baldwin's call to look at our lives and bear witness to the truth, we encounter our own calls to live more fully, love more honestly, have faith in things truly worth pursuing. Like St. Irenaeus (Against Heresies 4.20.7) of old, Baldwin argues that the glory of God is the human being fully alive. Following Baldwin as a spiritual guide offers us the chance to live into the things to which we're called--to become genuinely human.

During the reading for and writing of this book, Garrett followed in Baldwin's physical footsteps--walking with him from his early years in Harlem to his painful journeys to the American South, from the cafes of St.-Germain in Paris to the mountains of Switzerland, where he did some of his most important thinking and writing. Garrett consulted critical and cultural studies, as well as archival materials from the recently-inaugurated Baldwin Collection at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and the Harry Ransom Humanities Center in Austin, and the Beinecke Library at Yale. Out of this close study of Baldwin's words and his legacy, Garrett invites new readers and longtime lovers of Baldwin into a thoughtful exploration of his continued relevance.