Andre Dubus III is the author of House of Sand and Fog and a memoir, Townie. A complete collection of his father’s short stories has just been published.

With Father O’Malley, Crosby “concocted a fantasy priest—a perfect, albeit celibate, man.”

The church needs our young people. But we elders cannot nurture them in the faith if we repel them.

Two questions arise: First, is Dean Koontz to be listed among serious novelists at all? Second, what makes him a Catholic novelist?

For decades, the U.S. church has gifted its public servants with the social teachings and magisterium of the church.