While riding transit, I pass time by reading books about LGBTQ+ theology. My wife Danice is usually happy for me to summarize them for her afterward so she doesn’t have to read them herself, but having witnessed my frequent laughter and eager underlining as I devoured Eve Tushnet’s book, Gay and Catholic, Danice now wants to read it too. That in itself may be enough of a review.
Perhaps I was already predisposed to enjoy Eve’s book because I’m already fond of Eve. I attended one of her workshops this past January at the Gay Christian Network conference, and I was hooked by the way she unabashedly “geeked out” over historical accounts of spiritual friendship. Intelligent people often make you feel inferior, but listening to Eve just made me jealous; I wished that studying something could thrill me as much as it seemed to thrill her.
Along those same lines, I couldn’t help feeling like Eve took genuine delight in writing this book. It has more creatively crafted sentences, more literary allusions, and more of a consistent voice than any other book I’ve read in the LGBTQ+ Christian category. Reading it made me want to become a better writer. Even her rampant cat references somehow surpassed mere lesbian clichés: case in point, her confession that she associates “intentional community” with “arguments over whether the cats should go vegan.”
(read the rest over at the New Direction website)...