Thomas Merton and James Laughlin Selected Letters [Paperback]

Thomas Merton may have seemed an unlikely candidate for a best-selling author. Cloistered in a remote Kentucky monastery, Merton struggled as a young man to reconcile the contemplative life he sought as a monk and his very public passion for writing. Publisher James Laughlin saw Merton's talent and played the muse, encouraging him with the poems, essays, and diaries of other writers and publishing nearly everything Merton sent in return.The remarkable development of Thomas Mertonmonk, poet, and social criticas documented in nearly thirty years of correspondence with his publisher.