Thomas Merton and James Laughton: Selected Letters
New Directions, an enterprise created by Laughlin, has served as the publishing house for many seminal figures in 20th-century literature. This usefully and unobtrusively footnoted volume, edited by Cooper (American thought and language, Michigan State Univ.), brings together the most representative of the extant correspondence between Laughlin and his author Thomas Merton. As an addition to Merton's growing body of work (most recently, Dancing in the Water of Life, LJ 6/1/97, Volume 5 of his journals), it offers a cogent perspective on Merton the writer. The development of his thought and his grappling with the thorny questions of what are appropriate avenues for exploration while remaining true to his vocation all add further dimension to our understanding of this very complex and irrepressible figure. While the majority of the letters are Merton's to Laughlin, the latter nonetheless emerges as an important nurturing force. For Merton collections and those concerned with 20th-century literary history.?Mark Woodhouse, Elmira Coll. Lib., N.Y.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.