The New York Times
bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed
returns with a powerful memoir of her quest, beginning in childhood, to
discover “the truth”—about the universe and everything else.
In middle age, Barbara Ehrenreich came across the journal she had
kept during her tumultuous adolescence and set out to reconstruct that quest,
which had taken her to the study of science and through a cataclysmic series of
uncanny—or as she later learned to call them, “mystical”—experiences. A staunch
atheist and rationalist, she is profoundly shaken by the implications of her
lifelong search.
Part memoir, part philosophical and spiritual inquiry, Living with a Wild God brings an older
woman’s wry and erudite perspective to a young girl’s uninhibited musings on
the questions that, at one point or another, torment us all. Certain to be a
classic, Living with a Wild God
combines intellectual rigor with a frank account of the inexplicable, in
Ehrenreich’s singular voice, to produce a true literary achievement.
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“Emotionally evocative, at times disturbing, Ehrenreich’s work is
engaging and invites—no, demands that its readers question the world
around them and everything they believe about it. The author’s rational
approach to researching ‘religious experiences’ similar to her own, her
mission to find an answer to: ‘Why are we here?’ is profoundly relatable
to those who have asked similar questions, who have wondered at
humanity’s purpose, and who have probed at the presence of the Other.
Part memoir, part mystical journey, this is essential for anyone with an
interest in religious studies, contemporary history, or memoir and
biography.”
—
Library Journal (starred review)