Jim Forest, At Play in the Lions’ Den: A Biography and Memoir of Daniel Berrigan (Orbis Books, 2017).
The publication of At Play in the Lions’ Den brings to a fine and fit close a trilogy of biographies by Jim Forest, the previous biographical page-turners about Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton. There can be little doubt that Jim is perfectly poised and positioned to reflect and expand on the lives of Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton and Daniel Berrigan—-he knew each of them well, worked closely with them in his emerging adult years and writes about such a phase of his journey (with each of them) in a thoughtful and compelling journalistic way. Jim’s uncanny ability to thread the needle between a paper thin journalism and dry as bones academic style is his unique gift and genius.
At Play in the Lion’s Den, true to earlier biographies, blends, in an exquisite way, compact and succinct chapters that track and trace Daniel Berrigan’s life (from beginning to end) with fine photos that speak their own compelling and evocative tale. The title of the tome should alert the reader to the journey about to be told. The Daniel of Biblical legend weathered many a trial in the lion’s den in imperial Babylon. The obvious affinities (although more layered and nuanced) between the Biblical Daniel and Daniel Berrigan cannot be missed. The rapacious nature of the Babylonian empire has many an overlap with the imperial nature of the United States. Both men saw through the ominous nature and structure of their distinct empires, dared to be Daniels and, in different ways, endured the consequences of insisting the empire was without clothes.
The life of the Berrigan family is aptly recorded in the initial chapters of this finely textured book, Daniel’s earlier seminary years as a Jesuit clarified and his leadership role, as a Roman Catholic (quite different, indeed, from Republican and democratic Roman Catholics) is poignantly unfolded as Berrigan goes in and out of the prison houses of the American den of lions. The life of Daniel Berrigan (insightfully and artistically written about in various ways by himself) is brought together in this biography in a way that illuminates and probes yet deeper and fuller dimensions of Berrigan’s life and multiple published writings (excellent prose and poetry). Jim weaves well together Daniel Berrigan’s life with that of Phil Berrigan (who I had a lengthy correspondence within the late 1980s-early 1990s), Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton and many others of his generation that protested against the domestic and foreign policy issues (and there were many) of the USA from the Post WW II period to the end of Berrigan’s life.
The final few chapters of At Play in the Lions’ Den are tender and told in a winning manner. The further Daniel Berrigan traveled into his late autumn years, the more his body weakened and waned. The photographs near the end of this comprehensive biography do not shy away from walking into this phase and season of Berrigan’s life. Needless to say, the life of the Biblical Daniel was never recorded or told with such in-depth honesty, transparency and fragility. This makes, in a sense, the drama of Daniel Berrigan much more interesting and attractive, more worth the read than the much shorter and more victorious and, at times, hagiographical, tale of the Biblical Daniel.
There can be no doubt that Jim’s biography of Daniel will become the definitive portal book for those who wish to know both more about the literary, prolific and substantive life of Daniel Berrigan but also about the ethos of post WWII America (and those who cheered on the empire, those who moderately and safely questioned it and those who prophetically spoke into Molech’s dark places). I think, by way of conclusion, I cannot help but paraphrase a quote from Charles Dickens’ Bob Cratchit, “A triumph, another biographical triumph!”.
Ron Dart