Circuitous Journeys: Modern Spiritual Autobiography provides a close reading and analysis of ten major life stories by twentieth-century leaders and thinkers from a variety of religious and cultural traditions: Mohandas Gandhi, Black Elk, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, C. S. Lewis, Malcolm X, Paul Cowan, Rigoberta Menchu, Dan Wakefield, and Nelson Mandela. The book uses approaches from literary criticism, developmental psychology (influenced by Erik Erikson, James Fowler, and Carol Gilligan), and spirituality (influenced by John S. Donne, Emile Griffin, Walter Conn, and Bernard Lonergan). Each text is read in the light of the autobiographical tradition begun by St. Augustine's Confessions, but with a focus on distinctively modern and post-modern transformations of the self-writing genre. The twentieth-century context of religious alienation, social autonomy, identity crises and politics, and the search for social justice is examined in each text.
"This series of essays comprises a close reading by Leigh (English, Seattle Univ.) of the autobiographies of Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, M. Ghandhi, Malcolm X, Black Elk, Paul Cowan, Rigoberta Menchu, Dan Wakefield, and Nelson Mandela, arguing that their religious significance is best discerned by uncovering their literary pattern and the implicit psychological dynamic
Choice Magazine
"Leigh analyzes 10 major 20th-century figures in the light of the autobiographical tradition begun by Augustine's Confessions."
Theology Digest
"Leigh has given readers a model in which spiritual autobiography might fit."
