RaveThe Quarterly Conversation...wildly interesting ... I wasn’t won over immediately. The opening essay, an account of a trip to a Christian-rock music festival, begins with humor that’s a bit on the stiff side, as if the author were imperfectly channeling Bill Bryson. But as it proceeds, the narrative takes on an awkward and lovely radiance. The essayist choreographs a slow reveal of both himself and the men he meets that ends in a scene of transcendent beauty. Hallelujah—a writer who knows what he’s doing.
