For most writers, the greatest challenge of spiritual writing is to keep it grounded in concrete language. The temptation is to wander off into the clouds of ethereal epiphanies, only to lose readers with woo-woo thinking and sacred-laced clichés. Thankfully, Anne Lamott (Operating Instructions, Crooked Little Heart) knows better. In this collection of essays, Lamott offers her trademark wit and irreverence in describing her reluctant journey into faith. Every epiphany is framed in plainspoken (and, yes, occasionally crassly spoken) real-life, honest-to-God experiences. For example, after having an abortion, Lamott felt the presence of Christ sitting in her bedroom: This experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just an apparition born of fear and self-loathing and booze and loss of blood. But then everywhere I went I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk and then it stays forever. Whether she's writing about airplane turbulence, bulimia, her "feta cheese thighs," or consulting God over how to parent her son, Lamott keeps her spirituality firmly planted in solid scenes and believable metaphors. As a result, this is a richly satisfying armchair-travel experience, highlighting the tender mercies of Lamott's life that nudged her into Christian faith. --Gail Hudson


Amazon.com Audiobook Review
Anne Lamott admits that she's "ever so slightly more anxious than the average hypochondriac." When faced with a small, irregular mole and a family history of skin cancer, however, she remembers her faith in God and enjoys some peace--despite behaving "a little more like Nathan Lane in The Birdcage than I would have hoped." Author Lamott reads these wonderfully detailed postcards from her meandering journey to faith. With sharp and bittersweet humor, she recounts a past full of bad relationships with men, with food, with drugs, with alcohol, and worst of all, with herself. She battles her demons thanks to the love of her friends and family and her "lurch of faith" to embrace religion, that "puzzling thing inside me that had begun to tug on my sleeve from time to time, trying to get my attention." Inspiring but not dogmatic, Traveling Mercies is a treasure. (Running time: 4 hours, 3 cassettes) --C.B. Delaney


From Publishers Weekly
A key moment in the step-by-step spiritual awakening of the author came to her as a freshman in college when an impassioned professor taught her Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. Raised by her bohemian California family to believe only in "books and music and nature," Lamott (Bird by Bird; Operating Instructions) was enthralled by the Danish philosopher's rendition of the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham, Lamott learned, so trusted in God's love that he was willing to follow the order to sacrifice his own son. This story pierced Lamott and she "crossed over. I don't know how else to put it or how and why I actively made, if not exactly a leap of faith, a lurch of faith.... I left class believing?accepting?that there was a God." Nonetheless, it would take the heartbreak of her father's death and more than a dozen years of escalating drug and alcohol addiction to bring Lamott to fully embrace Christianity. In a short autobiography and 24 vignettes that appeared in earlier versions in the online magazine Salon, Lamott blends raw emotional honesty with self-mocking goofiness to show how the faith she has cultivated at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in the poor community of Marin City, Calif., translates into her everyday life and friendships, especially into her relationship with her young son, Sam. Although Lamott's clever style sometimes feels too calculated, the best bits here memorably convey the peace that can descend when a sensitive, modern woman accepts the love of God with her own brand of fear and trembling. First serial to Mirabella; author tour. Agent, Chuck Verrill. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
This book, Lamott's eighth (following Crooked Little Heart, LJ 4/1/97), is part spiritual autobiography, part essay on living as a recovering alcoholic, drug abuser, and bulimic and a loving but deeply anxious single mother. Lamott tells of finding Christian faith and learning to allow it to help her through tough times. Working hard at self-examination, she makes no excuses for herself. At times wickedly funny, her prose is as lovely as always. She notes that to Christians "death is really just a major change of addresses," but when her son is sick, the glibness vanishes, and she must work hard to allow herself patience and peace. Her musings on cellulite, curly hair, sick children, and fear of dogs are entertaining. She's the mouthy best friend we cherish at our kitchen table. Recommended for public libraries.?Judith Kicinski, Sarah Lawrence Coll., Bronxville, NYCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Alexandra Hall
[Anne] Lamott is a narrator who has relished and soaked up the details of her existence, equally of mirth and devastation, spirit and grief, and spilled them onto her pages.


The Boston Globe, Catherine Foster
Traveling Mercies is a collection of small pieces that shows how a life involved even the tiniest bit with prayer can open up or shift into place.... Nothing very dramatic happens in this book, just the steady accrual of moments of grace, the opening of a clenched heart, the stilling of a tongue. Anne Lamott doesn't become another person, just a better one. And that, in its own way, is plenty.


From AudioFile
Listening to Anne Lamott read her captivating book on faith and life should be a soul-satisfying experience. Instead it's disappointing. Lamott wipes the drama and life from this terrific book with a flat, seemingly uninterested narration. Her lack of emphasis makes some significant events sound trivial, and her single tone sometimes makes it difficult to know where one sentence ends and another begins. Here's wishing that Lamott would read with the artistry that infuses her writing. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Lamott's books are so alluring they seem to emit a gravitational force. A tender and perceptive novelist, Lamott is more than generous with the circumstantial and emotional facts of her private life in her nonfiction, writing here about profound crises and amazing salvations. The daughter of nonreligious California parents, Lamott longed for a context for her innate spirituality, especially after experiencing a "lurch of faith" in college, but instead sought escape from psychic pain in alcohol and drugs for many lonely years until she happened on a music-filled church in Oakland and found her spiritual family. Squeezing every last drop of meaning out of even the smallest things, Lamott writes agilely about such watershed events as the deaths of her father and closest woman friend, and the birth of her son and life as a single mother, all the while tracing her slow crawl back to faith with wonder, gratitude, and an irrepressible love of a good story. Donna Seaman


From Kirkus Reviews
Brutally honest, sometimes funny vignettes about affirming faith and community in the midst of drug-induced angst. Novelist Lamott's third autobiographical book (Operating Instructions, 1993; Bird by Bird, 1994) follows her usual pattern of cuttin g wit and wretched frankness. This memoir, though, is more spiritual than religious: Like many in her boomer generation, Lamott doesn't hold much truck with churches but has found a meaningful congregation all the same. It is a small, interracial communit y which lovingly incorporates pariah elements. Lamott circuitously chronicles finding the church (for months, she stayed only for the music, leaving before the sermon) just as she approached a crossroads in her life, finally admitting her alcoholism and o ther addictions, and starting out on the long road to sobriety (these chapters are among the books most chilling, along with her struggles to overcome body-loathing and bulimia). When she was on the verge of becoming a single mom in the late 1980s, the ch urch truly came through for her, with members slipping ten- and twenty-dollar bills into her pockets after Sunday services. Lamott remains an active participant, demanding that her son, Sam, attend church with her most weeks. ``I make him because I can,'' she explains. ``I outweigh him by nearly seventy-five pounds.'' Lamott also takes refuge in a wide assortment of friends, many of whom have to deal with life-threatening illnesses as the narrative moves along. In the face of these tragedies, Lamott is re freshingly silent about questions of theodicy, choosing instead just to be there for people in need. Friendship, she claims, is the best salve for anyones pain, anyhow. She should know; she's obviously been through a lot of it. Still, nothing here is self -indulgent. An anguishing account that also heals. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Even at her most serious, she never takes herself or her spirituality too seriously. Lamott is a narrator who has relished and soaked up the details of her existence, equally of mirth and devastation, spirit and grief, and spilled them onto her pages." --The New York Times Book Review

"Life-affirming...Lamott fills her text with remarkable detail and a refreshing sense of humanity that has you guffawing on one page and bawling on the next." --People

"You'll love Traveling Mercies for Lamott's unblinking confrontation with God's love, and you'll buy copies for all your friends struggling with faith." --USA Today

"Exuberant and captivating.... shifts from laugh-out-loud wisecracks to heart-wrenching poignancy. At one point she seems a reincarnation of Erma Bombeck; at others, she could be Annie Dillard or Kathleen Norris." --Chicago Tribune

"Compares with the witty and moving Christian apologetics of C. S. Lewis.... Lamott is a fine writer who combines theology with humor, compassion, and practicality." --The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Applies passion, wisdom, and intensity to a scorchingly personal look at the road from spiritual apathy to ardent belief.... Traveling Mercies, like Ms. Lamott herself, is a consistent delight." --Dallas Morning News

"Lamott has developed an entirely new genre of religious writing. Gritty, stark, and humorous, she catches the reader by surprise when she points her pen heavenward.... Anne Lamott [is] the patron saint of struggling sinners, a woman who loves God enough to be divinely human."--Religion News Service

"Anne Lamott is walking proof that a person can be both reverent and irreverent in the same lifetime. Sometimes even in the same breath." San Francisco Chronicle


Review
"Even at her most serious, she never takes herself or her spirituality too seriously. Lamott is a narrator who has relished and soaked up the details of her existence, equally of mirth and devastation, spirit and grief, and spilled them onto her pages." --The New York Times Book Review

"Life-affirming...Lamott fills her text with remarkable detail and a refreshing sense of humanity that has you guffawing on one page and bawling on the next." --People

"You'll love Traveling Mercies for Lamott's unblinking confrontation with God's love, and you'll buy copies for all your friends struggling with faith." --USA Today

"Exuberant and captivating.... shifts from laugh-out-loud wisecracks to heart-wrenching poignancy. At one point she seems a reincarnation of Erma Bombeck; at others, she could be Annie Dillard or Kathleen Norris." --Chicago Tribune

"Compares with the witty and moving Christian apologetics of C. S. Lewis.... Lamott is a fine writer who combines theology with humor, compassion, and practicality." --The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Applies passion, wisdom, and intensity to a scorchingly personal look at the road from spiritual apathy to ardent belief.... Traveling Mercies, like Ms. Lamott herself, is a consistent delight." --Dallas Morning News

"Lamott has developed an entirely new genre of religious writing. Gritty, stark, and humorous, she catches the reader by surprise when she points her pen heavenward.... Anne Lamott [is] the patron saint of struggling sinners, a woman who loves God enough to be divinely human."--Religion News Service

"Anne Lamott is walking proof that a person can be both reverent and irreverent in the same lifetime. Sometimes even in the same breath." San Francisco Chronicle


Book Description
Anne Lamott claims the two best prayers she knows are: "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." She has a friend whose morning prayer each day is "Whatever," and whose evening prayer is "Oh, well." Anne thinks of Jesus as "Casper the friendly savior" and describes God as "one crafty mother."

Despite--or because of--her irreverence, faith is a natural subject for Anne Lamott. Since Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird, her fans have been waiting for her to write the book that explained how she came to the big-hearted, grateful, generous faith that she so often alluded to in her two earlier nonfiction books. The people in Anne Lamott's real life are like beloved characters in a favorite series for her readers--her friend Pammy, her son, Sam, and the many funny and wise folks who attend her church are all familiar. And Traveling Mercies is a welcome return to those lives, as well as an introduction to new companions Lamott treats with the same candor, insight, and tenderness.

Lamott's faith isn't about easy answers, which is part of what endears her to believers as well as nonbelievers. Against all odds, she came to believe in God and then, even more miraculously, in herself. As she puts it, "My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers." At once tough, personal, affectionate, wise, and very funny, Traveling Mercies tells in exuberant detail how Anne Lamott learned to shine the light of faith on the darkest part of ordinary life, exposing surprising pockets of meaning and hope.




Download Description
Traveling Mercies takes us on a journey through Anne Lamott's troubled past to illuminate her devout but quirky walk of faith: how, against all odds, she came to believe in God, and the myriad ways in which that faith sustains and guides her in everyday life. With an exuberant mix of passion and self-deprecating humor, Lamott explores whether certain behaviors will get her "a better seat in heaven, " perhaps "near the dessert table, " or whether her mistakes "make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat disk" She writes about her family, about helping a friend through the devastating illness of her baby, about wanting but not having all the answers for her eight-year-old son.Through the hard-won wisdom that forms the core of her beliefs, and with wit, insight, and lots of heart, she shows us how she creates a life balance of connectedness and liberation.


From the Publisher
"Can Anne Lamott get any better? It hardly seems possible. After three books that have enjoyed both critical and commercial success, she now turns her attention to perhaps her most powerful subject yet, her faith in God. Traveling Mercies is an account of both her conversion experience and her attempts to lead a faithful life. Hilarious and genuinely moving, it is her best book yet. . .The essays in Traveling Mercies address serious and often grim subject matter: making sense of the grave illnesses that have struck several of Lamott's friends; learning to accept suffering; practicing true Christian forgiveness and love. Yet Lamott has a magic toch with this tough material. She can render almost any situation indecently, riotously funny, then turn around on a dime and find the lesson in it, find exactly how God has worked his (or her--Lamott is big on inclusive language) way into every moment of her life, no matter how painful and bleak. Never preachy, often reminding us not to take her too seriously...Lamott's essays could give an atheist pause. . . It is to Lamott's credit that she has taken what may be the last truly "private" subject and written about it with such ease and grace. She shares everything about her faith, from the two best prayers she knows ("Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you") to the time God appeared to her as a physical presence on one of her darkest nights. . . In truth, she uses her books as a means of exploring questions much larger than herself. She has written powerfully on some of life's most important subjects: motherhood, work, faith. One can only wonder what she will write about next--and hope that she will do it very soon."
--Caitlin Flanagan, San Francisco Chronicle"If you're stuck in an elevator when the Big One hits, you couldn't do much better than be stranded there with Anne Lamott. In a pinch, even her latest book, a collection of funny, warm, and sagacious personal essays. . . could get you through the dark hours. . . How much, and how little, faith can change us is Lamott's real theme. In meditations on her bulimia, her natty hair, her irritation with her aging, much-loved mother, she makes it clear that she is the same old Annie she always was, with the same insecurities and quirks. She doesn't wake up in a pool of sunlight every morning. But her faith provides an outlook on life that is less selfish than the one she would normally resort to. . . What saves Lamott's stories from sentimentality is is her ability to face truly taboo subjects, like envy and maternal competitiveness. Instead of a rose garden, she presents us with a scraggly, half-planted patch of earth--a real garden, with mounds of fresh soil and a steaming compost heap. One senses that Lamott, like most of us, is just working through things. Some flowers will get trampled or blighted, but others will burst into bloom. What remains with the reader are her tenderness and generosity. She gives enormous credit to her friends and family, to the old women at her church, to the authors she has read and to that "someone listening."
-- Regina Marler, Los Angeles Times"It's like having a coffee with a cranky, funny, chatty hilarious friend... It's a wonderful book."
--Diane Sawyer, Good Morning America"Hilarious... Anne Lamott has got the sort of heart that takes the chill out of the winter air. Like the rising tide, it floats all boats. This writer is tough. Tough on the world, tough on herself as well. Faith, for me, is not a place I've landed. It's a cliff I run off. You get the whole journey here. Lamott falls off the cliff, comes back brilliant, generous and funny. This is C.S. Lewis in Surprised by Joy. Only better."
--Ben Cheever, San Jose Mercury News

FROM OUR EDITORS

Anne Lamott, the author of such novels as Rosie and Crooked Little Heart and the fiction writer's bible, Bird by Bird, has written a new memoir, Traveling Mercies, about her own journey toward spirituality and the way her faith has influenced her life.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A chronicle of faith and spirituality that is at once tough, personal, affectionate, wise, and very funny. Anne Lamott claims the best two prayers she knows are "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Despite--or because of--her irreverence and wit, faith is a natural subject for Lamott. With an exuberant mix of passion, insight, and humor, in Traveling Mercies she takes us on a journey through her often troubled past to illuminate her devout but quirky walk of faith. In a narrative spiced with stories and scripture, with diatribes, laughter, and tears, Lamott tells how, against all odds, she came to believe in God and then, even more miraculously, in herself.

Whether writing about her family or her dreadlocks, sick children or old friends, the most religious women of her church or the men she's dated, she shows us the myriad ways her faith sustains and guides her, shining light on the darkest part of ordinary life and exposing surprising pockets of meaning and hope.

SYNOPSIS

From the bestselling author of Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird comes a chronicle of faith and spirituality that is at once tough, personal, affectionate, wise and very funny.

FROM THE CRITICS

New Yorker

Anne Lamott is a cause for celebration. [Her] real genius lies in capturing the ineffable, describing not perfect moments, but imperfect ones...perfectly. She is nothing short of miraculous.

Newsweek

Lamott writes about subjects that begin with capital letters (alcoholism, motherhood, Jesus). But armed with self-effacing humor and ruthless honesty—call it a lower-case approach to life's Big Questions—she converts potential op-ed boilerplate into enchantment.

Los Angeles Times

Smart, funny, and comforting...Lamott has a conversational style that perfectly conveys her friendly, self-deprecating humor.

Seattle Times

[She is] sidesplittingly funny, patiently wise, and alternately cranky and kind.

Entertainment Weekly