Jesus in the Minnows by David Craig

Jesus in the Minnows by David Craig

This is a memoir, yes, fictionalized (as all of them are in some way) because the facts don't matter nearly as much here as the Holy Spirit who moves the furniture, the physical world, and everything in it. This unvarnished book tries to do more than offer a happy or easy conversion. It foregrounds the Beat movement too, a movement that has long been way station and home to many excellent Catholic poets. The list is a long one: Kerouac, Merton, Everson, Fabilli, Berrigan, Baxter, Kavanagh, Levertov, Murray, Mariani, Karr, and Mistral. Not to mention song writers: Cohen, Springsteen, Waits; and if we're willing to stretch it a little, Dylan and Mitchell. The form, its openness and incompleteness, are perfect vessels. Jesus in the Minnows tries to bring these things together: a living Jesus, the author's on-going conversion, and his Beat vocation as poet and teacher. The reader will also find that humility, wisdom, mushrooms, and humor have come along to make it an interesting road trip.

David Craig is a Clinical Associate Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at University of Southern California, USA, and visiting scholar at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, in the USC-SJTU Institute of Cultural and Creative Industry.

Jian Lin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media Studies and Journalism at the University of Groningen, Netherlands.

Stuart Cunningham is Distinguished Professor of Media and Communication, Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Social Media Entertainment: The New Intersection of Hollywood and Silicon Valley and Creator Culture: An Introduction to Global Social Media Entertainment, both with David Craig, are published by New York University Press.