Revelation

Acclaimed author Dennis Covington examines the nature of faith, "the substance of things hoped for along borders where cultures and religions collide." If religious belief is, as Christopher Hitchens argues, the cause of wars and genocide, then is faith the cure? Traveling to countries that have unsettled borders and religious strife in common--Syria, Mexico, Israel, and the American South, to name a few--Covington searches for answers, looking not for doctrines, creeds, or beliefs--which, he says, can be irrational, contradictory, and dangerous--but for faith. Like his acclaimed Salvation on Sand Mountain, REVELATION is a personal journey, this time international in scope.

“"What comes through here and elsewhere in the book is the dark side of 'witnessing' people in extremity, a frisson that becomes addictive and that confers on the writer a sense of belonging to an elite: those who are willing to look at the dark heart of things." -- John Wilson, Chicago Tribune”

One of Spirituality & Health's Best Books of 2016

"Covington interweaves his personal stories into his accounts of travels to violent places, where he searches for signs of faith and hope. What he mostly finds, and describes vividly, is religious strife and brutality, with small moments of grace.--Sam Mowe, Spirituality and Health

"A deeply disturbing story about a deeply disturbed world, told with urgency and a disarming, self-effacing sense of gallows humor. Covington is a fearless writer who speaks to you as if he knows you, because in his heart he truly does. This is a fascinating journey, a riveting book, a harrowing pleasure. Here is one of our very best writers, one of the most honest and interesting human beings writing today."--Brad Watson, author of The Heaven of Mercury and Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives
"Deftly interweaving personal tragedy with reporting forays into brutal conflicts, Covington...delivers a superb, fast-paced memoir...[Revelation] is an essential, human account of the violent reactions to religious plurality in an increasingly polarized world."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Dennis Covington empathetically inhabits the victims of violence he meets, and in a fleeting instant, finds the grace that sustains them and the despair that transcends them beyond our reckoning. Touched by his epistles, we are somehow encouraged, even when all we have is God."--Mark Richard, author of House of Prayer No. 2
"Dennis Covington goes to unimaginable lengths to answer a defining question of our time: Why is religious faith so often associated with horrendous violence? His search, chronicled in Revelation, is at once global in scope, painfully personal and revealing."--Alan Huffman, author of Here I Am: The Story of Tim Hetherington, War Photographer
"From the first sentence on, you understand that what Dennis Covington brings to the page is something raw, terrifying, brilliant, and necessary. Vivid, tense, and compelling, Covington's story bears brave and unflinching witness to one of the most threatening conflicts of our time."--Kim Barnes, author of In the Kingdom of Men
"In his newest book, Dennis Covington addresses questions of doubt, faith, and belief with the same uncondescending and unflinching manner as in Salvation on Sand Mountain, but his scope is larger now, venturing into some of the world's most brutal places in a search for faith, and hope. Revelation is a marvel."--Ron Rash, author of Above the Waterfall
"My claim, as brassy as it is meet, is that Revelation by Dennis Covington is both the perfect complement to and the necessary antidote for Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. While the latter asks us to acknowledge the horror in and around us, the former invites us, even in the midst of the morally horrifying, to embrace the "substance of things hoped for" (Hebrews 11:1). Mr. Covington has seen the horrific up close and first hand: from the racial violence of his hometown, to the political violence of America's "dirty" war in El Salvador, to the religious violence consuming the middle east to the domestic violence peculiar to families rent by lost love to--well, his has been a life often out of round and wobbling out groove, a life not frequently in league with what President Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature." Still, I deeply admire his clarity and fearlessness. This is a volume, as much an argument as a memoir in his willingness to risk much for the much he hopes for, delivered to us in prose noteworthy for its muscle, its unexpected lyricism, and its relentless honesty."--Lee K. Abbott, author of All Things, All at Once
"Once again, Dennis Covington, author of the astonishing Salvation on Sand Mountain, rushes headlong into abysses that the rest of us flee, from the most brutal spots on earth to the rawest truths in the mirror. His obsessed, haunted quest scours the depths of madness--his, ours, this century's--yet somehow salvages faith from the most fearful despair. This brave book is a Revelation, indeed."--Alan Weisman, author of Countdown and The World Without Us
"Profoundly felt... collection of eloquent, harrowing dispatches...."--Pamela Miller, Minneapolis Star Tribune
"The faith [Covington] finds is not steady, historical, or some kind of inner light. It is a mode of life occurring at the front lines, where people suffer most--haunted, tormented, but always intensely alive."--Brook Wilensky-Lanford, New York Times Book Review
"These stories do not make for easy reading. They confirm that life's sacredness, whether expressed through organized religion or nonbelief, requires acts of tender mercy."

--Christopher McConnell, Booklist

"This moving and riveting first-person account will appeal to those interested in the Syrian conflict as well as readers who enjoy faith journeys such as those by Anne Lamott and Nadia Bolz-Weber."
--Library Journal (starred review)
"Twenty years ago, Dennis Covington wrote a classic book about the intersection of faith and violence in America. Revelation is an equally riveting exploration on a global scale of the dangers and the possibilities of belief. With searing insight and powerful prose, this fearless and deeply personal examination of religion's dark side dares also to look for its light."--Peter Manseau, author of One Nation, Under Gods
"What comes through here and elsewhere in the book is the dark side of 'witnessing' people in extremity, a frisson that becomes addictive and that confers on the writer a sense of belonging to an elite: those who are willing to look at the dark heart of things."
--John Wilson, Chicago Tribune

Dennis Covington is the author of two novels and three nonfiction books. His book Salvation on Sand Mountain was a National Book Award finalist and is a classic, and his articles have been published in The New York Times and Vogue. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and earned a BA degree from the University of Virginia. He earned his MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, studying under Raymond Carver, and currently teaches creative writing at Texas Tech University.

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