Stay Against Confusion: Essays on Faith and Fiction

In the tradition of Flannery O'Conner and André Dubus, A Stay of Confusion explores the role that religious belief and literature play in one writer's life. All creative writing is, in the words of Robert Frost, "a stay against confusion." It tries to find a harmony and order that we only fleetingly detect beneath the chaos of everyday life. Religion has also functioned in this way for Ron Hansen, and it shares with literature a reverence for mystery and for using metaphor to communicate a supernatural order that we will never fully perceive or comprehend.

Here, Hansen talks about his novels, his childhood and family, and about mentors like John Gardner and John Irving. He explores prayer, stigmata, martyrdom, and the Eucharist. A surprisingly intimate book, A Stay Against Confusion brings together the literary and religious impulses that inform the life of one of our most gifted writers of fiction.

About the Author:
Ron Hansen is a Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. Professor in the Arts and Humanities at Santa Clara University. He lives in Cupertino, CA.