Heretic Blood

Merton's famous autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain captured the imagination of a generation, selling more than 600,000 copies in its first year. As a monk he promised to remain celibate, yet he found himself passionately in love with a nurse he met while in hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.Thirty years after his death, there is a huge resurgence of interest in the life and work of Thomas Merton -- monk, poet, critic, rebel, sage. In this brilliant book, Michael Higgins re-examines that life and work from a unique point of view. It is the first to use recently released diary entries and correspondence by Merton. Comparing Merton to Merton's intellectual and spiritual hero, William Blake, and using Blake's own terms, the author comes to startling conclusions about the emotional and intellectual passions that drove Merton.