Chasing Francis...Someone send me to Italy, please.

A sort of review of Chasing Francis by Ian Morgan Cron

Fiction wisdom literature is an interesting genre in Christian publishing, and it has been revived in recent years. This genre had mostly been used for self-help or even new age authors trying to pass on a story with underlying morals, principles, and yes....wisdom. I generally stay away from Christian fiction, because I am an English Literature major, which means I am a snob about good writing, and except for the exceptions like Madeline L'Engle or C.S.Lewis who are in a category of their own, the fiction I read is generally not published by Zondervan.

Think of when The Shack exploded onto the market a few years ago. When I read The Shack, I knew it was fiction and read it as such. People were recommending it as a must-read but they all refused to give you any details. "You have to read it for yourself," they said. I heard preachers praising it or condemning it because some thought it was being portrayed as an actual experience and that scared them, and some thought it had some new and interesting thoughts and that excited them. What I took from reading it was that God was awfully fond of me, and I like the idea of God having a good sense of humor. While I take my faith very seriously, the novel introduced me to the possibility of a sense of playfulness in my relationship with God.

Reading a blog recently that praised a new book, I went to the website of Ian Morgan Cron and saw the chance to download two chapters of his new book, Chasing Francis. Reading those two chapters made me laugh and made me cry....and I immediately went to Amazon and ordered the book. When it arrived, I was disappointed to discover that the book was a work of fiction...wisdom literature it was called. Don't get me wrong....I am a fiction junkie. I often read 100+ books a year, and over half of those would be fiction. But those two chapters had led me into believing this was someone's real life account of their experience, and I was hooked.

I wanted to vicariously follow this stumbling pastor who had lost his way and see what he saw on his pilgrimage in Italy. I wanted him to be a real human being that I could relate to, and not just use his story as a fictional escape from my own life.  Like The Shack, The Celestine Prophecy, and many others, Chasing Francis has a fabulous idea, and pulls you into a story that keeps you going.....until the third last chapter or so....every one of those authors seems to have a little schmaltzy lag in the story line around that part of the book, which in this case, revives again, even with a fairly predictable ending. Chasing Francis has its' lag when the hard-luck, clumsy but beautiful single woman from his congregation chases him to Italy.

The pastor has this perfect (and much coveted by me) opportunity to find himself in Italy. He conveniently has an uncle who is an Italian Franciscan monk who takes him on a pilgrimage, following the life work of St. Francis of Assisi. I learned a great deal about the saint's life that I never knew before, and it made me want to read more about this rich kid who turns his world upside down and restores the faith and the church of a community in rural Italy (Francis would be considered a bit of a celeb today, maybe even a bit of a nutcase, but loveable and very admirable in his faith). In the process of his pilgrimage, the pastor meets with the wise hermit who can give wisdom just by his presence, the jovial friar, and the clumsy woman who wins his heart. All the characters help him in his inner pilgrimage to "restore the joy of his salvation".

It is different when an actual autobiography or even memoir where the author tells a story of what actually happened, but when you are making it appear to be a memoir, and it lapses into schmaltzy, even if for a chapter or two, it is deflating for the reader because you want so badly for this to be a true actual real story. I REALLY DID!!

I did greatly enjoy the book, and would hope that Mr. Cron would not take offense at the word schmaltzy, as his writing has moments of brilliance and despite the one chapter, the reader is left with a connection (with the pastor's struggles), a sense of wonder (at the life and work of Francis of Assisi) and longing (I too would love to take the same pilgrimage). If only I had an uncle who was a Franciscan monk and would invite me to Italy.....alas, none of my uncles would ever qualify as monks.