A review of Letters & Life: On being a writer, on being a Christian by Bret Lott. Published by Crossway.

I guess maybe I should start with this: this could be the best thing about being a Christian writer in contemporary times that I’ve read. And I’ve read quite a few.

Bret Lott is a New York Times bestselling writer, whose short stories have appeared in The Yale Review, The New York Times and many anthologies; and he’s even achieved that strange honour of having his novel Jewel become an official Oprah’s Book Club selection. Moreover, he’s a Christian:

“I started this with the Apostles’ Creed because I do believe in Christ’s divinity, in his resurrection, in his being precisely who he claimed to be. That is, I believe in a supernatural God, one who loves us and who cares intimately and deeply for us, so deeply that he gave his only begotten son to die for us.”

They are startling words to read from a successful author because a) writers who are Christian and write in the public sphere are rare b) writers who are Christian and write in the public sphere and are actually Christian in a more than nominal way are rarer and c) writers who are Christian and write in the public sphere and are actually Christian and write well are even rarer.

In this collection of essays, Lott is self-reflective about this rarity, and he tightly holds onto both ends: his Christian faith is absolutely central to his writing here, but he is also deeply concerned with the craft of writing.

The first essay here, “Why Have We Given Up the Ghost?” describes the difficulty of being a Christian writing in a secular market and world: “We have become so primed to believe in the self that there is no room for anything else, that it seems preposterous to have characters whose lives are altered by a supernatural God.” His solution to this tension is that it has been resolved. “Christ’s insertion into history combined once and for all story and logic, imagination and reason.”

The second essay, “The Artist and the City” describes the role of the Christian artist in the public sphere especially when “man, as he has been doing since the garden … placed himself on the throne of meaning and purpose; and art, man’s creation intended to be produced in harmony with God, wandered away.” The response of the Christian artist then is, not simply to recede into sentimental pictures of heaven on one hand, or into the bleakness of post-modernity on the other, but to create “art that must encompass the whole of man’s experience, its depravity and triumph both.”

The next three essays are shorter: “On Precision” is about the craft of precision in prose—so often a crucial marker in what makes good prose good—while turning delightfully to why writing with precision is a precisely Christian thing to do. “Writing with So Great a Cloud of Witnesses” turns, of course, on that passage in Hebrews, while reflecting on what it means for a writer to write for an audience, rather than to an audience. “Humble Flannery” is about the late, great Flannery O’Connor and how her own thoughts as a Christian and writer has affected Lott and his work.

The collection finishes with “At Some Point in the Future, What Has Not Happened Will Be in the Past”, an essay on the death of his father, poignant and lovely, even as he writes reflexively about the irony of his topic:

“‘This is another essay about the death of a father,’ I say again.

“I say it because, as the editor of a literary journal and as a teacher of writing, I have read a million stories and essays and poems about the death of a father.

“I say it because I know I will write these words one day.”

Altogether, it’s a lovely book, and I’m glad it exists. What bubbles up throughout is his love for God first, and his love for writing, and I, as a writer, can’t help be buoyed by his excitement for the subject. Within, there’s a bravery too, for being unashamedly Christian and yet also unashamedly a writer, a stance that leads him to this proclamation—at the American awards for the best Christian novel of the year, no less:

“Unless we create fiction that does more than simply entertain the troops—unless we make room within the Christian writing industrial complex for writers to create worthy work—art—that in its craftsmanship and vision challenges the heart and soul and mind of our readers—then we will be nothing more than happy clowns juggling for one another.”

To capture some of what craftsmanship and vision like that looks like, this book is highly recommended.