Dorothy Day: Radical Devotion (Book Review)

This probably shouldn’t be the first book about Dorothy Day that you read, but it certainly won’t be the last.  A graphic novel, it moves quickly and excites readers with Day’s lively action as she seeks to live Christianity to the fullest.  You’ll be enthralled by Korgen’s descriptions of her radical devotion to God and to living out His message by founding the Catholic Worker movement, so you’ll want to learn more and to read what Dorothy Day wrote as well as Peter Maurin’s Easy Essays and other books about the Catholic Worker movement. [1]

Dorothy always identified herself as a writer, and I don’t think founding a movement was what she had in mind when she and Peter Maurin wrote and sold the first edition of a newspaper called The Catholic Worker in Union Square, New York City on May 1, 1933. They just wanted to get their words out.

It worked. People read the paper, and it changed their lives.  People in need came to her for food and solace and others listened to her message and adopted her ideas, some coming to live with her, and some simply starting their own houses of hospitality.  Before long, there were Catholic Worker houses across the entire USA.

There wouldn’t be a Catholic Worker without Peter Maurin.  Dorothy had long been attracted to Catholicism and after giving birth to her daughter Tamar, conceived while living with Forster Batterham, she had her daughter baptized and then became Catholic herself and left Batterham.  But she continued to write for radical publications and while covering a hunger march in Washington DC, she prayed that she would find a way to unite her new Catholicism with her radicalism.

She returned home to find Peter Maurin on her doorstep, sent there by Simon and Shuster.  Her prayers were certainly answered: he introduced her to the social teachings of the Catholic Church and talked indefatigably for months, stressing the academic backgrounds of his three principles: cult (houses of hospitality), culture (clarification of thought in round table discussions, which would initiate action), and cultivation (Catholic Worker farms).

Dorothy took it all in and together they scraped up the money to publish The Catholic Worker every month.  Soon she was engulfed in hospitality and fund-raising, and always, always busy but still finding time for daily Mass, much prayer and reading.  As the movement grew, Dorothy traveled a lot, visiting Worker houses and speaking to thousands. She often returned home to find the work in disarray.

This graphic novel doesn’t go into many of those problems, but instead tells fascinating stories of the New York community and its troubles and triumphs.

I’d never read a graphic novel before and Christopher Cardinale’s art work takes a little getting used to for those like me who don’t read graphic novels. His art doesn’t look like a cartoon and the character’s looks change as they mature. Korgen has inserted a few interesting graphics, such as pages from Day’s long FBI file.

Korgen, who coordinated the local phase of Dorothy Day’s canonization movement, probably knows more about Day than anyone else, but he selectively chose events from her life to craft an enticing and easy read.

A long first chapter tells of her tumultuous early life: her first arrest as a suffragist, several love affairs, and the birth of her daughter Tamar.  Near the end of the book, he includes the beautiful ending of Day’s must-read memoir, The Long Loneliness. Two pages of “Making Saints” chronicle the U.S. parts of the process and a final page gives readers a small glimpse of the Catholic Worker houses across the world.

My hope is that you’ll read this book and be inspired to read more and to act. If you can, visit a Catholic Worker community near you or travel to one, help them as a volunteer, and donate funds. Perhaps you will want to actually become a Catholic Worker, as I did for ten years, giving up income and accepting voluntary poverty as you share with the poor.  It’s not easy, but it’s a sure way to live in community and to follow the Gospel, as Day and Maurin and their co-Workers did.  Or explore other options to live fully as a Christian.  Let’s hope that Korgen and Cardinale’s book inspires you in some way to Day’s radical devotion.

Related: Dorothy Day…Superhero? New Graphic Novel Tells the Story of Her ‘Hero’s Journey’