Fenton Johnson

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PUBLISHED: Jul.01.2008

Keeping Faith: A Skeptic's Journey among Christian and Buddhist Monks

In a resonant account of his spiritual quest, Fenton Johnson examines what it means for a skeptic to have and to keep faith. Exploring Western and Eastern monastic traditions, Johnson lives as a member of the community at the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky and at the branches of the San Francisco Zen Center. The book alternates meditations on Johnson's personal spiritual...

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PUBLISHED: Jun.01.1997

Geography Of The Heart

From Publishers Weekly Novelist Johnson watched his lover, San Francisco high-school teacher Larry Rose, die of AIDS in a Paris hospital in 1990 after an intense three-year relationship. Rose was HIV-positive but asymptomatic when they met, and while their lovemaking was haunted by fear of contagion, the author remains HIV-negative. Rose, was the only child of German Jewish...

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About Fenton

I write and publish prose -- fiction and nonfiction, including memoir, essay, commentary, criticism, and literary journalism -- with an occasional venture into narration writing for independent media and radio commentary.

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Causes Fenton Johnson Supports

ACLU

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

Sierra Club

Grace St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Tucson, Arizona

Wingspan, Southern...

Fenton’s Favorite Books

In no particular order: Howard's End, E.M. Forster; Middlemarch, George Eliot; Myths and Symbols of Indian Civilization, Heinrich Zimmer; Varieties of...