In Due Season: A Catholic Life

Praise for In Due Season
"Paul Wilkes's memoir is a love story—and also a story of a struggle with the lover, in his case, God. The son of an immigrant, Wilkes felt that he was called to a priestly vocation, indeed a Trappist vocation. God sent him many signals that this was not his calling. So Paul had to settle for what he thought to be a second-best vocation—a very successful writer. God heaved a sigh of relief. Paul had finally 'got it.' He has written a memoir of the century."
—Andrew Greeley, author, The Catholic Imagination
"Paul Wilkes is that rarest of people—a deeply spiritual man who is also an absolutely exquisite writer. His absorbing new memoir reveals the wonderful things that can happen when you allow God to lead you along life's often bumpy path—whether or not you know where the journey will lead. This is a beautifully written, frequently haunting, and always fascinating story of seeking and finding, serving and loving, and—ultimately—dying and rising. Highly recommended."
—James Martin, SJ, author, My Life with the Saints
"Paul Wilkes's biography takes us through Paul's life, but through the stages of our own lives as well. As a result, at the end of it we can see how we, too, have become more than we ever thought we could be. Wilkes is a great writer–he has a refreshing style, a direct voice, and a stark and unfurbished honesty, even about himself. In Due Season has all the marks of Augustine's Confessions or Merton's Seven Storey Mountain. It gives the rest of us, whatever we've done, wherever we've been, hope. It helps us see the forest of our lives despite the trees.
Read this book. It can put the seasons of your own life into better, broader perspective."
—Joan Chittister, author, Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir
Paul Wilkes' In Due Season takes the reader on a moving journey through an extraordinary era's thickets of American Catholic life and belief—opening at last into wisdom, affirmation, and hope.
—James Carroll, author, Practicing Catholic and An American Requiem, winner of the National Book Award

Paul Wilkes is an American writer, speaker, and filmmaker who is best known for his focus on religion, especially Roman Catholicism and its monastic tradition. Wilkes has written for the New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, and Atlantic Monthly. His book, In Mysterious Ways: The Death and Life of a Parish Priest, won a Christopher Award. In addition to Merton, his PBS documentary, Paul was host and writer of the acclaimed television series Six American Families, which won a duPont-Columbia award for documentary excellence.

Author's Note.
Introduction.
Formation.
1. The Seventh Child.
2. A Vision.
3. High School: The Man in the Ten-Way Suit.
4. Coming Home, Leaving Home.
5. College: Red Arrow Park.
6. At Sea.
7. One Hot Day . . . and Night.
Making It.
8. A Young Reporter.
9. The Big Time, More or Less.
10. Home, Again.
11. On the Streets.
Unmaking It.
12. CHIPS Days.
13. Present.
14. The Pilgrimage.
15. Not Present.
16. The Sofa.
17. 80 Winthrop.
18. The Scent of a Woman.
As Good as It Gets?
19. On the Playing Fields of the Hamptons.
20. The Perfect Girl for You.
21. Tracy.
Getting Bearings.
22. The Hermit.
23. Almost.
24. A Place to Park.
25. Father Greer.
Life, Lived.
26. The Writing Life.
27. A Monk, at Last.
28. Why? Why Not?
Returning.
29. Kolinovce.
30. Worthy or Not.
31. Return to St. Peter's.
32. A Light in the Window.
Acknowledgments.