I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You: My Life and Pastimes

With I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You, Ralph McInerny—distinguished scholar, mystery writer, editor, publisher, and family man—delivers a thoroughly engaging memoir. In the course of his recollections, McInerny describes his childhood in Minnesota; his grammar school and seminary education, with his decision to leave the path toward ordination; his marriage to his beloved Connie and their active family life and travels; and his life as a fiction writer. We learn of his career as a Catholic professor of philosophy at Notre Dame, his views on the Catholic Church, his experiences as an editor and publisher of Catholic magazines and reviews, his involvement with the International Catholic University, and his thoughts on other Catholic writers. Part homage to his academic home for the last half century and part appreciation of the many significant friendships he has fostered over his life, McInerny's reminiscences beautifully convey his lively interest in the world and his gift for friendship and collegiality. Written in his characteristically elegant style, by turns charming, poignant, humorous, and revealing, I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You will delight McInerny's many devoted readers.  “Here is a memoir that is more than a chronicle of a full life lived within a Catholic intellectual milieu. With unique literary skills and the wisdom of seventy-five years, McInerny enlivens and interprets the major intellectual events of his time, delving into the past to understand the present. The result is the kind of book that future historians of culture will regard as a primary source. Modest and unassuming, McInerny fails to do justice to his own role in the intellectual life of the Church, a role as important as that of Chesterton and Belloc in a previous generation." --Jude P. Dougherty, Dean Emeritus, School of Philosophy, The Catholic University of America and Editor of the Review of Metaphysics "I picked this book up during a spare hour—and hours later have scarcely been able to get back to anything else. This is a charming, bittersweet, witty, evocative, even romantic reminiscence of a wonderful life, teeming with children, penury, wild trips to Europe, sudden (and immense) success in writing (after many, many rejections), the love of a good woman—and her common sense, besides—and an incisive record of an amazing stretch of years from the Depression and World War II through Vatican Council II, and on into our own new century. Be prepared to weep a little, and laugh a little—it ought to be a movie. McInerny's masterpiece!" —Michael Novak, George Frederick Jewett Scholar, American Enterprise Institute