Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century
John Loughery and Blythe Randolph
Narrated by Cassandra Campbell
Simon & Schuster Audio, March 03, 2020
$19.84 for Audible members, more for non-members
purchased with an Audible credit

To say that this biography is comprehensive is an understatement. The print edition is 442 pages and the unabridged audiobook is over seventeen hours. The authors document Dorothy Day from her birth to her death after a long and productive life.

The book is far from a hagiography. I was tempted to write that Day was no saint, but in fact her canonization is very much in process today, as the postscript to the book documents. I will simply say that Dorothy Day had her faults and this biography does not try to hide them.

Her younger adult life was spent at various jobs, many of them in journalism. She was drawn to left-leaning publications and was skilled as a reporter and writer. She always had an attraction to religion in general and Catholicism in particular but was never quite sure what to do with that attraction. It was only after her daughter Tamar was born that she fully embraced Catholicism. And it was only after meeting the French transient and philosopher Peter Maurin that she found her vocation. He had a vision of a newspaper focused on social justice and of a place where the poor and dispossessed could find shelter. Her conversations with Maurin finally spurred the the founding of the newspaper The Catholic Worker and the establishment of St. Joseph’s House in New York.

The authors describe how Day felt that everyone should be welcome at her houses of hospitality (others sprang up across the country) and how she insisted that, unlike other similar organizations, there were to be no consequences for failure to pitch in and work or to follow the rules. Day was also a horrible mother and pretty much neglected her daughter, which resulted in much misery Tamar’s adult life.

Nonetheless she was at the forefront of the anti-war movement and the fight against racial and economic inequality. On the other hand, she had no tolerance for homosexuality, while ironically multiple dedicated workers at St. Joseph’s House and The Catholic Worker were gay or lesbian. They simply knew not to raise the subject.

Dorothy Day encountered and was admired by some of the most highly visible activists and spiritual leaders of the twentieth century, including Abbie Hoffman, the Berrigan clan, Caesar Chavez, and Thomas Merton.

Day was a complex woman, and the authors provide a nuanced and complete profile of her life and personality. The audiobook is capably read by Cassandra Campbell, who narrates the material in a highly listenable manner, making it sound as if it were her own.