Pilgrim River candidly narrates one man's wandering but sincere attempt to come to terms with the overpowering experience of God—a journey from unbelief to nature mysticism in the deserts and mountains of Nevada and Utah, to sojourns through the country of marriage and the republic of letters, and finally to the Catholic Church. He travels a twisted and thorny path, plagued by a lack of spiritual guides and mentors, by isolation and depression, by a failed first marriage; but present throughout is a groping toward spiritual fulfillment—alternately tortured, hopeful, and bathed in luminescence. Many spiritual seekers, including those who consider themselves "spiritual but not religious," will benefit from the telling of this unorthodox journey to Christianity.
“Pilgrim River is a most unusual memoir of a most unusual life. It is unlike any conversion story I have read. The greatest power in its pages is the force of nature and nature’s God.”
— Mike Aquilina, author of The Fathers of the Church
“Pilgrim River echoes Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain and Augustine's Confessions. Yet, in its evocations of the natural world and its honest depiction of a tortured journey toward hope and love, it stands alone.”
— Michael N. McGregor, author of Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax
"At once luminous, tragic, and hopeful, this memoir is balanced on the edge of belief and doubt, of knowing and unknowing. Pilgrim River invites the reader into the heart and life of a man haunted by the call of Spirit. This is a book to be read and reread, a companion for those who seek--for the God-haunted, the wanderer, the misfit. A sense of divine presence in all things--especially in the margins--hums within the pages of this memoir."--LISA OHLEN HARRIS, author of The Fifth Season and Through the Veil