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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (75821)	9/28/2003 2:11:50 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

This author sounds interesting. Do you know her work? Steeped in faith, Anne Lamott defies religious stereotypes By Teresa K. Weaver THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION ATLANTA - Author Anne Lamott, a self-deprecating, self-labeled "aging hippie type," may be the unlikeliest of born-again Christians. (Truth be told, she favors the term "Jesus freak.") At 49, she is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, claiming to have struggled with "every possible major addiction you can have except for gambling, which is probably right around the corner." Clean and sober for 17 years, she is shamelessly devoted to her 14-year-old son, Sam, whom she wrote about with great wit and irreverence in 1993's "Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year." Lamott tends to fret about everything, not least of all reviews of her work. "Your books are like your kids," she says by telephone from her home in Northern California. "You always worry that they won't be understood." Lamott's most recent book, the novel "Blue Shoe," is just out in paperback from Riverhead Books. Shortly after it was released in hardback last year, it became her first fiction to crack The New York Times best-seller list. "Blue Shoe" has strong Christian elements, albeit distinctly Lamottian ones. Said one reviewer the book is "basically a Christian novel with lots of sex and profanity." Lamott defies religious stereotypes, but her faith is well-documented, most fully in the 1999 essay collection "Traveling Mercies." She runs the youth program at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Marin County and talks casually about "entering the kingdom" when her time comes. "When I'm on tour and I'm at a radio station, I tend to get a lot of calls from the Christian right, who explain that somebody with my political and feminist views won't think she's so smart and funny when she ends up rotting in hell for all eternity," she says. "But 95 percent of the feedback I get is from people who say it's just a relief to know that there are ways to imagine or experience God that don't have to do with fundamentalism." Mattie, the protagonist in "Blue Shoe," is much like Lamott, she says. The complex relationship between mother and daughter, particularly as Alzheimer's forces a reversal in roles, is a familiar scenario to Lamott, having lost her own mother to the disease two years ago. Lamott's father died of brain cancer when he was in his early 50s; she was 23. "I don't believe you're supposed to get over certain losses," she says. "I know that I don't want anyone to ever get over my death! They should be sad forever and think that life is not nearly as sweet as it was when I was around." Nowadays, Lamott does only limited book tours, partly out of fear of failing: "I can't stand getting bad reviews. I find it painful." And partly out of fear of flying. "When I'm sitting there at 30,000 feet and I look out the window," she says, "I think, 'What's wrong with this picture?' And then I start missing my cat, and then I think I'm going to die, and then I think my animals will die, and Sam will have to live in an institution and eat government cheese. Every time I get on a plane, it goes from me to Sam eating government cheese really quickly." Lamott's greatest fear right now is the gubernatorial recall in her home state. "The thought of having Arnold Schwarzenegger be the governor of this very troubled state makes my blood run backwards," she says. She practices her own form of activism, registering new voters and contributing money regularly to the American Civil Liberties Union and to select candidates. "And I write these funny little pieces (for salon.com) and try to help people laugh and keep their hopes up," she says. "There's nothing more spiritual you can do, besides resting, than laugh."