We Carry Smoke and Paper
By Melody S. Gee (University of Iowa Press, 2024)
Among salt-cured fish, melon soup, pork dumplings, and other foods made by her mother, poet and writer Melody Gee experienced her first liturgy. “The take-out restaurant’s liturgy is harried and hot,” she writes. “When you leave, you still wear your hunger, but now you carry a steaming box of hope, bursting toward your first bite.”
In Gee’s new book, We Carry Smoke and Paper: Essays on the Grief and Hope of Conversion, faith wears this whole-body hunger. An adult convert to Catholicism and the adopted daughter of Chinese immigrants, Gee writes of how throughout her life language and silence, immigration, adoption, and faith—each filled with aching loss and hope for belonging—moved her from “certainty to uncertainty.”
In the essay “Idiolect,” Gee writes: “The first stage of learning a new language is often called the silent period, necessary for the learner to absorb all the newness, and lasting sometimes for months.” Seeking within the Catholic Church, Gee found herself inside her own silent period. “In this way, my faith feels similar to my mom’s English, created just as her new self was created: in this country and no other, under these circumstances and no others, for these reasons and for this life,” she writes.
Gee recalls histories and traumas her parents endured as immigrants, assimilating into American culture as a child, starting her own family, and how these threads informed her decision to seek baptism in the Catholic Church and ultimately write this book to set the stories free.
Gee’s writing is rich and alive. This is a book of essays that invites seekers of faith to wear their hunger with hope, too. “It was exactly the muck and grace, I realized, that I wanted to be initiated into,” Gee writes. “The muck and grace was where I wanted to belong, return to, and be sent forth from.”
—Cassidy Klein
Fire in the Whole
By Robert G. Callahan II (Westminster John Knox Press, 2024)
Giving just due when reviewing a poignant and necessary work can be daunting. This was the case with Robert G. Callahan II’s Fire in the Whole, which speaks to a reality that U.S. Christians must address: the anger of Black Christians at the influence of white Christianity within American churches.
Using the metaphor of fire to speak of this anger and desire for change, Callahan calls the reader to acknowledge and oppose white Christianity, which he describes as “ that subset of Christianity that intentionally ignores, or does not consciously consider the effects of racism or prejudice—in either in the church or society—on the marginalized.” Deftly exploring this through personal experience and analysis, Callahan offers a guide to wholeness beyond the toxicity that is white Christianity.
Although he writes from his experience as a lawyer and a former evangelical, Callahan speaks to any minority who is frustrated by the church’s failure to address racism and bigotry—as well as to any ally or conservative of good will who is open to dialogue and willing to work to repair the breach. Personally, as a Black Catholic I felt that Callahan expressed much that has been on my mind for a while. Beyond that, his blueprint for healing the wounds caused by white Christianity are practical.
Many minorities in U.S. churches have been disillusioned by the way people and institutions that claim faith in the same God have been negligent in addressing or even complicit in racism and prejudice. This disillusionment needs to be expressed and heard if we are to move toward healing. It needs to roar like a purifying and warming fire, calling those willing to do the work. In Fire in the Whole, Callahan provides an accessible framework for taking action.
—Rana Irby
Briefly noted:
Up Against a Crooked Gospel
By Melanie Jones Quarles (Orbis Books, 2024)
Quarles uses Black religious thinking and cultural criticism to demonstrate how the Black church plays a part in both supporting and oppressing Black women.
Friendship Reset
By Maggie Craig (Ave Maria Press, 2024)
Sharing her own experiences as a teen and young adult, Craig reflects on the challenges of friendship in today’s times and brings faith into these relationships.
Dwelling with Dignity
By Suzanne Mulligan (Liturgical Press, 2024)
In the face of rising global homelessness, Mulligan, a moral theologian, examines how Catholic social teaching can help us to commit to care for the unhoused.
This article also appears in the February 2025 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 90, No. 2, page 39). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.
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