All Is Grace: A Biography of Dorothy Day 2011
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Dakota Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars The best introduction to her life and its signficance
Reviewed in the United States on 4 March 2013
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If you're like me, you've known about Dorothy Day and maybe even read a quote or two from her many writings, since you were a newly questioning adolescent. You may even have read her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, and found her an exemplar of giving into the call to live a moral life. Dorothy Day's commitments are of the eternal sort, but that wax into prominence at times of desperation when the cruelties of contemporary life get harder to ignore.
I've read a number of things by and about Dorothy Day over the years --
- Robert Coles' Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion,
- William Miller's Dorothy Day: A Biography, and, of course,
- The Long Loneliness, On Pilgrimage, and
- Loaves and Fishes
-- all of them wonderful.
But for whatever reason, I never read Jim Forest's biography in its earlier incarnations. I can't say why -- his biography of Thomas Merton (Living with Wisdom: A Life of Thomas Merton) is one of my favorites and his Praying with Icons has enormously deepened my contemplative practice.
Forest writes like a dream -- inspired -- and everything he touches goes to the source. And so, looking for some ballast in a life turned hectic and a world become harsh, I turned to my exemplars again for a little retreat in everyday life. This was a perfect book for the moment. Not hagiography, yet combining a clear-eyed affection with an honest account that one suspects Dorothy Day applied to herself in her own self-reflection, this biography succeeds in telling her story within the contexts of its unfolding.
You want to know that she was born during the excesses, strangely parallel to our own, of the Gilded Age. You want to know that her explorations and urgings to something more, showing up in quiet attraction to the spiritual at an early age, were of a piece with her later pull toward outsiders, rebels, and renegades. And you want to know, too, that she never abandoned those people who became her friends when she appeared most rudderless before finding the thing she had always been called to.
Forest's account doesn't blink. It presents a life that becomes an enormous inspiration and call to the rest of us precisely because so many things in it were/are things that we, too, experience. Dorothy Day may someday be recognized as a saint in some official way, but for those of us who like our saints to know what we ourselves are going through, she's already the person we can invoke in our morning meditations. And this book, so elegantly written and so much like the quiet, conversational account of a friend who wants to share something with you, is the perfect introduction to Dorothy Day. The layout -- including photographs and excerpts from Day's letters, journals, and published work as sidebars -- is appealing and serves to draw you into Dorothy's own words and thoughts. They cause you to want to read more (I went from this biography to her From Union Square to Rome, also re-issued by Orbis, to her selected letters, All the Way to Heaven, edited by Robert Ellsberg). Orbis needs to be congratulated for this re-issue and others. And Jim Forest needs to be thanked for the update.
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Susan
5.0 out of 5 stars An American hero.
Reviewed in Canada on 6 January 2013
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I was asked to do a paper on Dorothy Day even though I had never heard of her. It was educational and humbling to read of a woman, who in the early 1900s, worked alongside others to effectively open doors for political and religious change - especially for people who were marginalized.
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Arleen Mueller
5.0 out of 5 stars The Definitive Biography of Day
Reviewed in the United States on 7 August 2011
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"Love is the Measure", Jim Forest's first book on Dorothy Day was always my favorite biography of Dorothy. A couple of years ago, I was excited when I heard that Forest was doing a re-write of his original book. I was expecting some revisions and a few additional photos but I never expected a total revision and update warranting a new title, "All is Grace: A Biography of Dorothy Day".
It seems the perspective of additional years of reflection, the opening of the cause for her canonization, and the release of Dorothy's diaries and letters all impacted a fresh look at her life and Jim Forest so aptly gave us a new view of her remarkable life. It is written with the same personal attention to the details of each important phase of her live as was his first book. Each phase of her life is told like a separate story, written so personally as if he was with her at each step. It is the perfect way to tell the story of her life. Dorothy was fond of telling stories to others, and in my several meetings with her during the summer of 1976, she was more personally interested in my view points, opinions and life experiences than she was in talking about herself.
After the first 3 chapters, focused on her early years with her family, the next 8 chapters take us through the struggles of her young adult years beginning with going away to college. It was almost painful reading through these chapters as she struggled to find herself, which she finally did after the Spirit led fateful encounter with Peter Maurin on December 9th, 1932.
The following 7 chapters focus on the early years of the Worker. The core values are covered in separate chapters. At times it seems that competing priorities needed to be sorted out as the Catholic Worker sought to define itself.
The next 9 chapters cover important aspects in her personal life and the life of the Worker. Her struggles as a single parent, the life changing annual retreats she made, the years with Ammon Hennacy and the final imprisonment of her life in California, resulting from her demonstrations with Cesar Chavez and the farm worker union just some of the topics covered.
The following 5 chapters cover her later years. It starts with her final travels which included a trip around the world, a few years later her confinement in her room at Maryhouse and ending with her funeral and burial on Staten Island. Like the chapters covering her early adult years, I found these final chapters painful to read as age and poor health gradually overtook the once vibrant, activist life that Dorothy lived for so many years. And yet, as the pace of her life slowed, she showed us how to grow old gracefully, ultimately preparing for her death. Jim Forest covers this final period of her life with delicacy and affection.
The second to last chapter narrates the process that lead to opening the cause for her canonization. Forest chronicles the steps taken by the Cardinals O'Connor and Egan to gain the Vatican's approval and establish the Guild for Dorothy Day, which is the official instrument to promote her cause. The final chapter entitled "Dorothy Day: A Personal Remembrance" finally gives Jim Forest the opportunity to share in detail what Dorothy meant to him and how she impacted his faith and life.
"All is Grace: A biography of Dorothy Day" is without question in my humble opinion the definitive biography of Day. A bonus being all the photos (200+) that are distributed throughout the book. I can unequivocally recommend it both to those who know little of her, but are curious to learn and those who are very familiar but would like a comprehensive review of her life.
For students of Day and the Catholic Worker movement this is a must read along with:
* "All the Way to Heaven: The Selected Letters of Dorothy Day" edited by Robert Ellsberg
* "The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day" edited by Robert Ellsberg
* "Dorothy Day: Portraits of Those Who Knew Her" by Rosalie Riegle, and
* "The Catholic Worker Movement: Intellectual and Spiritual Origins" by Louise and Mark Zwick.
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Jim Crooks
4.0 out of 5 stars From the Slums to Sainthood
Reviewed in the United States on 15 January 2013
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Beautifuly written, Jim Forrest's biography of Dorothy Day tells her life story from a difficult childhood through the writer's life of the Roaring Twenties into her years of intense faith beginning in the 1930s with her developing Catholic faith. Equally important was her journalist editing of The Catholic Worker, feeding the hungry, supporting the homeless, opposing war and the racial/ethnic injustices of the 1960s. Day was radical in the best sense of the word, the word being the teachings of Jesus to love one's enemies, feed the hungry, clothe the naked and sup with sinners. Devout as a Catholic but critical of the institutional church for its wealth, support of war and separation from the poor, Day influenced the lives of thousands even to the bishops of New York who have nominated her for sainthood within the church. Forrest tells the story well and sensitively with many photos and insightful words written by Day.
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P. J. Sullivan
5.0 out of 5 stars More Than a Biography
Reviewed in the United States on 29 May 2015
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An excellent introduction to Dorothy Day. Better than her autobiography for three reasons: 1) It covers her entire life, not just her early years. 2) It covers all aspects of her life, not just her religious conversion. 3) It draws on all her writings, public and private, including her recently-released diaries. It is detailed without being boring, personal without being biased.
For those already familiar with her, this is an excellent recap. It clarifies things and fills in the gaps nicely. Years of research went into this book; I don’t see any obvious factual errors. Having known Dorothy Day, I can attest to the accuracy of this book. Should she be canonized a saint? I don’t know why not. See the discussion in this book.
More than a biography, this is also a history of the Catholic Worker movement within the larger contexts of American and world histories. Well written, clear and easy to follow, though its page layout is not easy on the eyes. (The text is squeezed into narrow columns to accommodate oversized margins that are mostly wasted space. What were they thinking? But it is readable.)
Other than its page layout, this is a great book! An engrossing story of an eventful life. Recommended to anyone who would like to get to know Dorothy Day and walk a mile in her shoes. The illustrations, mostly photographs, are many and outstanding.
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Brad Pethoud
5.0 out of 5 stars Dorothy Day: An Apostle of Christ to America
Reviewed in the United States on 27 August 2019
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Since her conversion to Roman Catholic Christianity in the 1920s Dorothy Day advocated a Christian revolution in the American societal caste system through her words and deeds. She was the cofounder of the Catholic Worker Movement which is based on the gospel of Jesus Christ and Marxist ideology. The are over 200 Catholic Worker houses in the USA. They are centers of refuge for poor, destitute and marginalized human beings. All Is Grace is an excellent biography written by Jim Forest who lived with and knew Dorothy Day intimately. He also draws upon her writings and those of others who knew her. It's a fascinating and inspiring read. For me it was like going on a "mini retreat"!
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J. A. Donaghy
5.0 out of 5 stars She was just good
Reviewed in the United States on 12 July 2011
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All Is Grace was a grace for me. It is a marvelous book on the life and work of Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker, full of photos, quotations, and stories of a life lived fully for God and the poor. I heartily recommend it.
The chapter "My Universities" really captured my imagination with the wide range of friends of Dorothy Day. It was like overhearing - or maybe better, watching - a series of disparate characters live on this earth.
I was continually touched in reading the book by the sacramentality of her life - the role of the sacraments in her life, the sacramentality of daily life, and the sacramentality of being with the poor.
A quote from Dorothy Day when she met with Missionaries of Charity in India really touched me: "Christ remains with us not only through the Mass but in the 'distressing disguise' of the poor. To live with the poor is a contemplative vocation, for it is to live in the constant presence of Jesus." (p. 263 It speaks to my reality as a missionary in Honduras. Even though where I live is not a poor area, I am often visiting among the poor, eating with them, and staying overnight. Those are contemplative moments.
There were a few photos that really moved me, especially the ones on pages 255 and 333. I only realized why I liked them so much when I read Jim's personal reflection and his remark that most photos show a dour Dorothy. In these two photos she has a gentle smile. These photos remind me of the one time I personally met her, at the end of a Friday night Clarification of Thought at St. Joseph's House in the early 1970s when I lived in NYC. I have no memory of what she or I said but I have the feeling of having met a grandmother - with all the grace that entails.
When I read the section from Day's Therese, I realized that what she wrote about Therese might be said of her, summing up her life, "she was just good."
* Just a note that I am a friend of Jim Forest.
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Greg Cook
5.0 out of 5 stars Introduction to a Modern Holy Woman
Reviewed in the United States on 18 May 2015
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Forest knew Dorothy Day but writes with clarity about her--he esteems her but can see her flaws. This is a fine introduction to her life, philosophy, and work, and it is enhanced by many photos.
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M. Perez
5.0 out of 5 stars Job well done!
Reviewed in the United States on 1 March 2022
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Jim does an excellent job in guiding us through Dorothy Day's life, the good with the bad, without engaging in sensationalism or allowing his personal beliefs about Dorothy to noticeably color the narrative.
Jim takes us in a very personal journey of Dorothy Day's life, sharing with the reader many of her thoughts, beliefs, passions and especially how she uncompromisingly lived according to solid Catholic values, and became a beacon of Catholic Social Teaching in action.
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