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Summary
Summary
The life and work of Dorothy Day--the iconic, celebrated, and controversial Catholic whom Pope Francis called a "great American"--told with illuminating detail by her granddaughter.
Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was a prominent Catholic, writer, social activist, and co-founder of a movement dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor. Her life has been revealed through her own writings as well as the work of historians, theologians, and academics. What has been missing until now is a more personal account from the point of view of someone who knew her well. Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved by Beauty is a frank and reflective, heartfelt and humorous portrayal as written by her granddaughter, Kate Hennessy.
Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved by Beauty challenges ideas of plaster saints and of saintly women. Day is an unusual candidate for sainthood. Before her conversion, she lived what she called a "disorderly life," during which she had an abortion and then gave birth to a child out of wedlock. After her conversion, she was both an obedient servant and a rigorous challenger of the Church. She was a prolific writer whose books are still in print and widely read. While tenderly rendered, this account will show her as driven to do good but dogmatic, loving but judgmental, in particular with regards to her only daughter, Tamar. She was also full of humor and laughter, and could light up any room she entered.
An undisputed radical heroine, called "a saint for the occupy era" by The New Yorker , Day's story unfolds against a backdrop of New York City from the 1910s to the 1980s and world events spanning from World War I to Vietnam. This thoroughly researched and intimate biography provides a valuable and nuanced portrait of an undersung and provocative American woman.
Author Notes
Kate Hennessy is a writer and the youngest of Dorothy Day's nine grandchildren. Her work has been included in Best American Travel Writing . She is the author of Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved By Beauty and, in collaboration with the photographer Vivian Cherry, Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker: The Miracle of our Continuance . Kate divides her time between Ireland and Vermont.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Dorothy Day, named a Servant of God by the Vatican, was just "Granny" to Hennessy. In this intimate, detailed biography, Hennessy depicts her grandmother as a very human being. By the third chapter, Day has been jailed, failed at suicide, chosen abortion, lived in sin, and borne a daughter out of wedlock. Then she converted to Roman Catholicism and eventually founded the Catholic Worker houses of hospitality. Hennessy's memoir emphasizes Day's role in her family: mothering her daughter, Tamar Hennessy (often discordantly), and grandmothering Tamar's nine children (Hennessy is the ninth). The memoir spills as much about Tamar as about Day. Tamar moved often with her children and spinning wheel, always dragging along her deflating self-esteem. Hennessy quotes Day's love letters to Tamar's father and interviews Tamar about her memories. She also weaves in lines from Day's columns for the Catholic Worker newspaper, splices in the Hennessy siblings' stories, embeds quotes, and reveals the backstory of a magnetic woman who was "not always a clear-eyed visionary." Hennessy has created an amazing tapestry of Day's life and the memories she left with her loved ones. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The youngest grandchild of Catholic social activist Dorothy Day (1897-1980) reminds us that before she became the candidate for sainthood she now is, she was a mother and a grandmother in a tumultuous, unconventional family. Bosom friend of Eugene O'Neill's in the original Greenwich Village bohemian scene and lover of a footloose left-wing reporter whose baby she aborted, Day wedded a fellow radical who left her after the birth and Catholic baptism of their daughter, Tamar (they maintained a lifelong friendship, though). While a single mother raising Tamar, she met Catholic visionary Peter Maurin and launched Catholic Worker in the depths of the Depression, first with a newspaper, then with a house of hospitality in Manhattan, and eventually, fulfilling Maurin's dream, with communal farms. Hennessy's memoir presents all those developments but focuses on Dorothy's relations with Tamar and the nine children Tamar bore the troubled David Hennessy. Tamar and her children struggled with Day, and all abandoned the church, if not necessarily either the faith or CW. Dorothy Day comes to life, here, but Tamar also lives on the page, engaged with her mother in an absorbing family drama that Hennessy depicts with warmth, poignancy, and not a little poetry.--Olson, Ray Copyright 2016 Booklist
Kirkus Review
A rare glimpse into the life of one of America's most revered social activists.Hennessy (Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker: The Miracle of Our Continuance, 2016), granddaughter of Dorothy Day (1897-1980), utilizes family correspondence, Day's journals, and her own memories to construct a detailed, riveting biography. In many ways, this book is a dual biography, not only of the author's grandmother, but also her mother, Tamar, who was Day's only daughter. Indeed, the complex mother-daughter relationship between Dorothy and Tamar makes up a large portion of the book. Hennessy dives right into Day's unusual and chaotic life. Even as a very young woman, Day was on her own, working varied jobs, coming into and out of abject poverty, experiencing heady love affairs, and always writing. With time, she funneled her energies into three pursuits: her newfound Catholic faith, her daughter, and her great creation, the Catholic Worker, which was primarily a newspaper but which was also a way of life for many activists. Readers will be intrigued to learn of Day's intimate life story from the 1920s through the 1940s, especially, with the rise of the Catholic Worker as a parallel tale. Somewhat estranged from her mother during the 1950s, Tamar would return to New York and to the Worker, eventually taking it on as her own life's work. Hennessy presents her grandmother in full. Though her respect for her is great, she also recognizes the challenges she faced and the many facets of her personality and life that prove she, like anyone else, was far from perfect. Perhaps no theme so dominates the book as much as love: the love between mother and daughter, Day's often unrequited love for Forster Batterham, Tamar's father, and Day's love for helping the poor, which drove her life's work and was inspired by her love for God.Fascinating, well-told, candid, and tender. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Dorothy Day (1897-1980), who established the Catholic Worker movement along with Peter Maurin, is the subject of this new biography by her granddaughter, Hennessy. The author tells the story of Day's life from her bohemian youth writing for leftist newspapers such as The Liberator; her conversion to Catholicism in the 1920s; the birth of her only daughter, Tamar; the founding of the Catholic Worker movement in 1933; and the ensuing struggles of maintaining the movement through many difficult years. This book also chronicles a family. Day's strained and sometimes troubled relationship with her daughter is featured prominently, as are her relationships with Tamar's father and her grandchildren. What results is an all too human portrait of a woman who deeply loved and cared for her family as well as the needy and poor who found their ways to the Catholic Worker and its hospitality houses. VERDICT Readers interested in religious figures, American Catholic history, and peace and social justice movements will all find something to like and takeaway from this intimate portrayal of Dorothy Day.- Chad E. Statler, Lakeland Comm. Coll., Kirtland, OH © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Preface | p. ix |
| Part 1 The Mystery of Grace | p. 1 |
| Part 2 The Mystery of Love | p. 119 |
| Part 3 The Mystery of Freedom | p. 227 |
| Part 4 The Art of Human Contact | p. 301 |
| Epilogue | p. 351 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 355 |
| Index | p. 357 |
