The story of a monk, a minstrel, and the music that brought them together
In
1965 writer-activist-monk Thomas Merton fulfilled a twenty-four-year
dream and went to live as a hermit beyond the walls of his Trappist
monastery. Seven months later, after a secret romance with a woman half
his age, he was in danger of losing it all. Yet on the very day that his
abbot uncovered the affair, Merton found solace in an unlikely
place—the songs of Bob Dylan, who, as fate would have it, was
experiencing his own personal and creative crises during the summer of
1966.
In this striking parallel
biography of two countercultural icons, Robert Hudson plumbs the depths
of Dylan’s surprising influence on Merton’s life and writing, recounts
each man’s interactions with the woman who linked them together—Joan
Baez—and shows how each transcended his immediate troubles and went on
to new heights of spiritual and artistic genius. Readers will discover
here a riveting story of creativity and crisis, burnout and redemption,
in the tumultuous era of 1960s America.