Harvard Divinity student on pain, angels

The Wall Street Journal and National Catholic Reporter have interesting profiles of Chris Adrian, a student at Harvard Divinity School and emergency room pediatrician at Children's Hospital Boston who has now authored a collection of short stories called "A Better Angel.''

The Journal declares, "He has a strong following among the literary magazine set, and with his latest book he has a chance to win a mainstream audience." And if you think you have a long to-do list, read this paragraph describing the 37-year-old Adrian:

"Mr. Adrian will start a pediatric hematology-oncology fellowship at University of California, San Francisco on Monday. He'll have to return to Cambridge at some point to complete his master's at Harvard. Meanwhile, he's working on a novel that he describes as a modern-day 'A Midsummer's Night Dream' as well as a young-adult book about an eleven-year-old girl who makes a deal with the devil where if she can prevent a young boy from committing suicide, he will save her mother's life. Then, he says, he'd like to look into pursuing a Ph.D. in bioethics."

In the National Catholic Reporter story, Adrian describes his relationship with the faith of his childhood, and its impact on his writing:

"A Catholic sensibility -- a physical, sensuous world lit with transcendent meaning and fraught with spiritual conflict -- infuses his work. Yet the writer no longer calls himself Catholic. 'If I had to choose -- and I guess at some point I’m supposed to -- on my little Divinity School student profile card they haven’t seemed to notice yet that I haven’t put anything down -- it’s somewhere between Unitarianism and Congregationalist,' he said in a rush. Then he added more slowly, 'I have lots of different feelings about Catholicism. Sort of equal parts affection and anger. I thought about whether or not to stick around and decided I would find a better home someplace else. But I never found any place that seemed like home. I think that’s one of the dangers of growing up Catholic. I never really found another place that was good enough or real enough. Having heard all my life how special Catholicism was, nothing could come close.'”

(Photos courtesy of Farrar, Straus and Giroux)