{"id":2880,"date":"2008-09-08T11:40:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-08T11:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/merton-in-41-oh-its-a-trappist-monastery-in-kentucky-where-ive-been-making-retreats.html"},"modified":"2008-09-08T11:40:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-08T11:40:00","slug":"merton-in-41-oh-its-a-trappist-monastery-in-kentucky-where-ive-been-making-retreats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/merton-in-41-oh-its-a-trappist-monastery-in-kentucky-where-ive-been-making-retreats.html","title":{"rendered":"Merton in ’41: “Oh, it’s a Trappist monastery in Kentucky, where I’ve been making retreats…”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Martin dug up this gem, in his remembrance<\/a> of the great publisher and editor, Robert Giroux<\/a>, who died last week. Giroux was a good friend of Thomas Merton’s when the two were at Columbia just before World War II. <\/p>\n

This comes from Giroux’s introduction to the most recent edition of The Seven Storey Mountain<\/i>: <\/p>\n

“When I was working at Harcourt Brace & Company as a junior editor, I was asked to evaluate a novel by Thomas James Merton, submitted by Naomi Burton of the Curtis Brown literary agency. The hero of ”The Straits of Dover” was a Cambridge student who transfers to Columbia and gets involved with a stupid millionaire, a showgirl, a Hindu mystic and a left-winger in Greenwich Village. I agreed with the other editors that the author had talent but the story wobbled and got nowhere. Merton was an interesting writer but apparently not a novelist.<\/p>\n

Then, in May or June 1941, I encountered Tom in Scribner’s bookstore on Fifth Avenue. I had been browsing and felt someone touch my arm. It was Merton. ”Tom!” I said. ”It’s great to see you. I hope you’re still writing.” He said, ”Well, I’ve just been to The New Yorker and they want me to write about Gethsemani.” I had no idea what this meant and said so. ”Oh, it’s a Trappist monastery in Kentucky, where I’ve been making retreats.” This revelation stunned me. I had had no idea that Merton had undergone a religious conversion or that he was interested in monasticism. ”Well, I hope to read what you write about it,” I said. ”It will be something different for The New Yorker.” ”Oh, no,” he said, ”I would never think of writing about it.” That told me a great deal. I now understood the extraordinary change that had occurred in Merton.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jim Martin dug up this gem, in his remembrance of the great publisher and editor, Robert Giroux, who died last week. Giroux was a good friend of Thomas Merton’s when the two were at Columbia just before World War II. This comes from Giroux’s introduction to the most recent edition of The Seven Storey Mountain:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thomas-merton"],"yoast_head":"\nMerton in '41: "Oh, it's a Trappist monastery in Kentucky, where I've been making retreats..." - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/09\/merton-in-41-oh-its-a-trappist-monastery-in-kentucky-where-ive-been-making-retreats.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Merton in '41: "Oh, it's a Trappist monastery in Kentucky, where I've been making retreats..." - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jim Martin dug up this gem, in his remembrance of the great publisher and editor, Robert Giroux, who died last week. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2880\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}