In Due Season

The noted author recounts the struggles and triumphs of his search for spiritual meaning in this “exquisite memoir that often reads like a novel” (Publisher’s Weekly). Acclaimed for his writings on religious belief and spirituality, Paul Wilkes now recounts his lifelong search for God. Starting with his working class upbringing in Cleveland, his story continues through lonely nights in a factory; working his way through college; a surprising confrontation during the Cuban Missile Crisis; a torrid romance on the Indian Ocean; acceptance into an Ivy League school; and entering the “perfect” marriage, which would eventually fail. A man who seemingly had everything, Wilkes gave it all up to live with the poor. Then, in a dizzying turnabout, he became a person he could hardly recognize—a celebrity author. Spending his summers in the Hamptons, he knew Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, and Kurt Vonnegut, but not himself. He sat at the feet of the Dalai Lama. He was an avowed hedonist. He lived as a hermit at a Trappist monastery. He found true love and ran from it. He was a true son of the Church and a sinner beyond anything he might have imagined. In Due Season is Paul Wilkes's candid and probing memoir of seeking and getting lost, of abysmal failure and ultimate triumph, with a faith in God battered and tried in the crucible of his life.