A Jesuit's Journey Through the Turbulent 1960s

In Paul Swift's rollicking and rambunctious memoir, the rigid, time-tested discipline of the Society of Jesus collides head-on with the spirit of the 1960s. It's a time of fervid change. JFK, MLK, and RFK are assassinated. There are riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, antiwar and antinuclear protests, drugs, and casual sex. Paul Swift is there through all of it, preparing to become a Jesuit priest, coping in his own way with the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Along the way we find him attending protests, hitchhiking with his mother, discussing James Joyce with a cop in Boston, and fleeced by a bathrobe-clad judge in Murdo, South Dakota. Paul Swift is a superb storyteller, and he has a riveting story to tell.