The Culture Alliance’s (subscribers’ only) Friday Fiction e-newsletter focused on me today—very flatteringly, and I’m grateful. You can read most of it yourself here at S. T. Karnick’s The American Culture blog.



With all due regard to the passing of J. D. Salinger, my own reading universe has been far more powerfully impacted today by the death of Ralph McInerny, who passed away this morning. (Thanks to Southern Appeal for the heads up.)

McInerny was a noted Catholic religious scholar and University of Notre Dame institution, as well as being a highly successful mystery writer. His Father Dowling mysteries (not—I repeat, not—to be confused with the awful television series starring Tom Bosley which purported to be based on them), along with his Roger and Philip Knight books, set at Notre Dame, formed only the tip of his fictional iceberg, much of which consisted of books written under pseudonyms.

Although I am far from being a Catholic, I always found McInerny an author whose faith and principles I could identify with. I don’t think anyone would call his books sentimental or naïve in their depiction of the real world, but they breathed out an atmosphere of spiritual peace and rationality that must have been generated by a rare spirit. I wish I’d had the chance to meet him.