{"id":680,"date":"2008-06-05T23:10:39","date_gmt":"2008-06-05T23:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/danny-gospel-1.html"},"modified":"2008-06-05T23:10:39","modified_gmt":"2008-06-05T23:10:39","slug":"danny-gospel-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/danny-gospel-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Danny Gospel"},"content":{"rendered":"

(This post will be sticky for the rest of the day…new posts below.) <\/em>
\nIn his new (and first!) novel, Danny Gospel<\/a><\/em>, David Athey has penned an evocative tale of a suffering pilgrim, a young man with a particular and in ways peculiar life, but one in which it is easy to find echoes of our own, because it embodies the tragedy and hope characteristic of any human being’s life on earth.
\nFrom the back cover copy:<\/p>\n

As a boy he performed concerts singing old-time hymns with his family and got so famous he\u2019s still known around Iowa as Danny Gospel. But since then, things haven\u2019t worked out quite the way he planned. And now Danny prays for just one thing: a normal, happy life.
\nWhat he gets instead is a kiss.
\nHe wakes one morning to a perfectly lovely woman dressed in white who leans down, kisses him on the lips\u2026and then disappears. The next moment, Danny finds himself launched into a quest to find this woman he\u2019s sure is his true love. He is an everyday hero on anything but an everyday journey\u2014dreaming impossible dreams and, no matter how much he must suffer, pursuing romance and heavenly glory<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"It is not an easy book to synopsize. Something is clearly wrong with Danny Gospel, but we are not quite sure what – if there is just a great sadness or unease about him or if he is spiritually afflicted or mentally ill or all of the above.\u00a0 He is, in short, a Holy Fool. He lives amid unanswered questions, unresolved situations and unreconciled relationships, is clearly seeking some sort of peace. The driving movement of the novel, I think, is the attention Danny Gospel pays, in his hyper-aware, oversensitive state – to what moves and lives around him. In other words, Danny Gospel lives looking for signs – and signs with a capitol “s” – somewhere there is peace, and the journey to that peace cannot be a total mystery. By looking, listening and being led, perhaps we can find it. We will <\/em>find it.
\nDanny Gospel <\/em>is\u00a0bursting with interesting and eccentric characters in both the primary setting of Iowa and in Florida, the site of a brief sojourn. The novel was published by Bethany House, a traditionally evangelical publisher, but David is a Catholic and his novel is peppered with Catholic characters, settings and clearly emerges from a Catholic sacramental sensibility, as well as the Catholic understanding of suffering and holiness. It’s encouraging to see Bethany expanding its list in this way.
\nDavid’s a poet, and the book is strongest where those poetic gifts shine through – in lyrical and spiritually evocative moments like this, for example:
\nThe gravel gleamed as if the Milky Way had spilled a million frozen stars. Directly in front of me a deer crossed over with a constellation on its head. And then a fox with a comet’s tail. The road was busy with brilliant animals moving from one field to another, avoiding the harvesters. All night long, I limped up and down the road with all of creation crossing my path and slipping away. <\/em>
\nThere’s much more where that came from.
\nDanny Gospel <\/em>is enjoyable and moving – and I think anyone would find it so, but I want to recommend it especially for a particular type of reader. Don’t get me wrong – this isn’t the only <\/em>type of reader who would enjoy this book. Not at all, but just consider this. If you’ve got a friend or acquaintance who thinks Joshua <\/em>is the height of spiritually-weighted storytelling, give them Danny Gospel.<\/em>\u00a0 The general shape of the story will appeal to them from the outset, and once they get into it, their spirits might just be nudged in a more expansive, knowing and substantive direction.
\nAnd the rest of you too – and don’t blame me if you close the book at the end mumbling, “Durn you, David Athey…oh, and has anyone seen the Kleenex?”
\n\u00a0Scroll down for a\u00a0 brief interview with David Athey<\/em>
\n(By the way…David is lurking in these parts, so if you have any comments or questions for him, feel free to post them. )<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(This post will be sticky for the rest of the day…new posts below.) In his new (and first!) novel, Danny Gospel, David Athey has penned an evocative tale of a suffering pilgrim, a young man with a particular and in ways peculiar life, but one in which it is easy to find echoes of our…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nDanny Gospel - Via Media<\/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\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/danny-gospel-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Danny Gospel - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(This post will be sticky for the rest of the day…new posts below.) In his new (and first!) novel, Danny Gospel, David Athey has penned an evocative tale of a suffering pilgrim, a young man with a particular and in ways peculiar life, but one in which it is easy to find echoes of our…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/danny-gospel-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-06-05T23:10:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/g.christianbook.com\/g\/slideshow\/2\/204440\/main\/204440_1_ftc_dp.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Danny Gospel - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/danny-gospel-1.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Danny Gospel - Via Media","og_description":"(This post will be sticky for the rest of the day…new posts below.) In his new (and first!) novel, Danny Gospel, David Athey has penned an evocative tale of a suffering pilgrim, a young man with a particular and in ways peculiar life, but one in which it is easy to find echoes of our…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/danny-gospel-1.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2008-06-05T23:10:39+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/g.christianbook.com\/g\/slideshow\/2\/204440\/main\/204440_1_ftc_dp.jpg"}],"author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/danny-gospel-1.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/danny-gospel-1.html","name":"Danny Gospel - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/danny-gospel-1.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/danny-gospel-1.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/g.christianbook.com\/g\/slideshow\/2\/204440\/main\/204440_1_ftc_dp.jpg","datePublished":"2008-06-05T23:10:39+00:00","dateModified":"2008-06-05T23:10:39+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/danny-gospel-1.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/danny-gospel-1.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/danny-gospel-1.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/g.christianbook.com\/g\/slideshow\/2\/204440\/main\/204440_1_ftc_dp.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/g.christianbook.com\/g\/slideshow\/2\/204440\/main\/204440_1_ftc_dp.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/06\/danny-gospel-1.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Danny Gospel"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}