Since My Last Confession
The Spiritual Journey of a Young Artist
The book was begun at the request of readers wanting a sequel to my previously published novel Journal of an Itinerant Artist, autobiographical essays which had first appeared as a weekly column in a local newspaper. But though based on experiences in my life and on people I'd known, events and characters in Since My Last Confession soon took on lives of their own, shedding the restraints of dispassionate reporting and questionable memory. What had or may have actually happened gave way to what-ifs, supposing, imagination, embroidery. I abandoned the attempt at documentation, let the characters have their way. And they traveled far afield, most eventually bearing little resemblance to people or events which may have originally spawned them.
The spiritual journey of a young artist at mid-20th century, Since My Last Confession sensitively probes the faith and doubts of a pre-Vatican II cradle-born Roman Catholic. Luke at any early age is profoundly influenced by priests and nuns at school, later at work he pursues, in the army during World War II, and in post-war Europe while a graduate student in Florence. A wide circle of friends and experiences introduce him to other Christian denominations and other faiths, contributing to struggles he's known with Catholic dogma since a teenager.
Irrevocably bound to a Church which he questions and from which he's alienated, Luke's spiritual dilemma is heightened by professional setbacks, economic hardships, and rootlessness. When he falls in love with with a privileged Jewish college student, Esther, he's forced to face hard decisions about his faith, his work, commitments.
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© 1997 drewbaci@santafe-newmexico.com
