Inside the July/August 2024 issue
Hope, Always
“Now, as forever, there is hope.” These words preface beloved novelist Bret Lott’s Gather the Olives, a memoir of his time among friends in Israel and Palestine. They were written in the after—in a time when war had already reignited. The book itself, a passion project infused with the promise of peace, was written before.
I hesitate to touch this topic. Hope feels barbed right now, and the path forward to peace is so very obscured.
But we know, even in times that prompt despair, that there are always people fighting for better. There are reminders of that in this issue as well, shining forth from the past. The University of Chicago’s Spiritual Criminals, for example, is about activists who organized against the Vietnam War and faced prosecution for doing so, whose actions inspired spiritual fervor. And the diversity herein is also a testament to our shared humanity: there are stories about the search for belonging at home abroad, as with the memoir Manboobs; there are examples of challenging the divine with spirited sass, as in Irreverent Prayers. And there are voices from all across the globe—including from regions facing war. No voice is shut out. These authors we love: they pique, they dare, and they persist without apology.
There’s inspiration here. There’s even hope—an ember to nurture and follow, even though the direction forward is hard to suss out.
So we press on, guided by our collective knowledge and our past examples of success—and by the stories we tell ourselves about the better world beyond this pain. “Hope,” Lott assures us, “still lives.”
Sincerely,
Michelle Anne Schingler
Editor in Chief
mschingler@forewordreviews.com
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Here’s a list of the books we’re reviewing in our July/August issue.
Michelle Anne Schingler
