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Was the writing enterprise of these four more about their own pilgrimage than about publishing and selling?

All of them felt it vitally important to communicate. None of it was art for art's sake. They wrote for their community of admirers, confident that it would find its way into the general culture. Walker Percy saw writing, for example, as a message in a bottle put in by one person to be urgently sent forth and read by another.

How did firsthand experience become an important part of each of their writing? None of them were writing from an intellectual, theoretical standpoint.

Catholicism wasn't thought to prize individual experience at that time. Individual experience was something for Protestants. I don't think that's true, but that's the way the issue was framed then. So how is it that these four writers were so confident that their own experience was vital and representative?

In part, I think it comes from the fact that they were adults before they became active Christians. Part of it has to do with their knowledge that as writers they have to have a personal vision of things. The writers they admired had a personal view and so would they.

People expected at the time that a conversion story was just going to start at the top and go higher. What so many people connected with in a book like The Seven Storey Mountain, and still do, is a sense that here's a person whose struggles to make sense of his life in his early manhood are real, and that when he claims religious faith it's hard won.

Did you select the title, The Life You Save May Be Your Own?

I did. It comes from a story by Flannery O'Connor.The story falls at the exact center of the book. For me, it captures the experience of reading and writing. Certain books will reach us at our deepest level. At their best, they'll change us. And they may even help us to save our lives.

Copyright © 2003 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Visit DickStaub.com for audio and video of his radio program (4-7 p.m. PST), media reviews, and news on "where belief meets real life."

Related articles in Christianity Today's sister publication Books & Culture include:

The Holy Ghost School | Four Catholic writers and their shared vocation. (Books & Culture, May/June 2003)

The Last Catholic Writer in America? (Books & Culture, Nov./Dec. 2001)

Recent Dick Staub Interviews include:

Why We Are Drawn to The Matrix | Chris Seay, coauthor of The Gospel Reloaded, says the first movie was about finding belief and the second looks at walking that path. (May 27, 2003)

Remembering Francis of Assisi, the Crazy Genius | CT managing editor Mark Galli finds someone who lived the Sermon on the Mount. (May 20, 2003)

John Ortberg's Freak Show | Churchgoers' attempts to be average are killing them, says the Willow Creek pastor. (May 13, 2003)

Winning People, Not Arguments | John Stackhouse discusses the evangelistic need for humble apologetics (May 6, 2003)

Francis Schaeffer's Grandson Goes to War | Frank Schaeffer talks about how his views of his country, culture, and prayer changed as his son joined the Marines (Apr. 29, 2003)

Alistair Begg on The Beatles | The author and pastor talks about the Fab Four's cry for "Help" and why no one answered it (Apr. 22, 2003)

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June (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47