The Last Catholic: A Novel

The Last Catholic is a psychological coming-of-age novel set in the years 1942-1964. Its first half dramatizes the experience of the protagonist, Michael Coight, growing up Roman Catholic in the years 1942-1959; a time when sin, shame, and guilt focused on sexuality as the primary way in which the Church violated the human psyche. The second half dramatizes the radical changes the protagonist experiences in attending a Jesuit college--Marquette University--1960-1964. This is a story about someone engaged existentially and psychologically in a radical effort to learn how to think by immersing himself in the greatest works of philosophy and literature. It's a story about what college could be and sadly isn't for most people who squander years that could be spent in the greatest adventure: the creation and freeing of one's mind. It's a story about reading and what reading can be if one reads from that place within that is defined by the fundamental questions of existence. As such the book is what it is about. Its primary purpose is to transform the reader's relationship to the act of reading. In reading Michael Coight's story, we learn perhaps how to read our own. Read more