Grace : A Memoir

The Washington Post

There's so much more in this riveting, surprising memoir. Cartledgehayes quit pastoring, disillusioned with the politics and suspicions. Around the same time, she took up the piano, discovering she was as gifted there as in the pulpit. This is a key element to her spiritual recovery, and well described, but not as interesting as the events leading up to it or the coda of the last chapter, about her final sermon, a loving and gracious leave-taking. It's an exhilarating chapter. It's a wonderful book. — William O'Sullivan

Publishers Weekly

This breathless, pulsating, sensual memoir by a Methodist minister demonstrates a poetic mastery over language and breaks open stereotypes about Methodists, ministers, feminists, grandmothers, musicians and all the other roles Cartledgehayes embodies. The book is a brisk excursion through her unusual childhood on a small island, her early pregnancies and failed marriages and the dramatic miracle that propelled her into church, a loving relationship and the ministry. Cartledgehayes steers the reader firmly through life as a woman in a conservative divinity school and into her post with a struggling congregation. This is not a Pollyanna story about how the maverick but plucky outsider wins the hearts of a skeptical, resistant community; it is a mosaic exploration of how hard it can be to love a community (let alone please everyone in it). Cartledgehayes lets readers glimpse the exhausting, give-it-your-all world of creating sermons without deconstructing or diminishing the spiritual power that gives them life. She flips with ease between the daily grind of ministry and connections with the divine; the Zen-like moments she enjoys holding her grandbabies and the healing sex she shares with her husband. She swears liberally and loves passionately. The memoir also dissects the issues that eventually propelled Cartledgehayes out of the ministry and into piano lessons, hence the many piano metaphors sprinkled throughout the book. Somehow Cartledgehayes turns herself inside out in this memoir without turning the reader off; it is a dense and juicy book that moves both heart and mind. (Apr.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Recently ordained United Methodist minister Cartledgehayes debuts with no-holds-barred reflections on her decision to be ordained, her experiences while in charge of a church, and her uncertainty about her future in the ministry. Some religious writers emphasize prayer and spirituality; others, like the author, are motivated by a need to preach God’s word and to fight for the powerless. Cartledgehayes offers a disarmingly frank account of her own life and of the difficulties and moments of grace she encountered as minister to a church in South Carolina. Raised on an island on one of the Great Lakes, she dropped out of college at 19 to get married. By then she’d given up on God, but after two divorces and two children, living in the South in what she calls "affluent poverty--the fun kind where disaster is only a paycheck away, " she began occasionally attending church. She also began talking and thinking about God: did He exist, and if so, what were the implications? In November 1980, now in her early 30s and driving along the highway in a brand-new Chevette, she had a "conversion experience" as the car became bathed in golden light. God did exist, she realized, and she needed to be in church. Witty, a tad profane, known to cuss and smoke, as well as take a drink or two, Cartledgehayes next describes how her marriage to widower Fred Hayes provided solace and encouragement as she attended Duke Divinity School, where she encountered considerable sexism but won a prize for preaching, and was ordained in 1986. Sent to minister in a dying church, she worked energetically to save it, gave memorable sermons, and conscientiously tended to the sick and dying, but the congregation did not renew hercontract, possibly because she was a woman. Burned out and disillusioned, she applied to take leave, but despite the setbacks still believes all life is holy. A beguilingly straightforward account of the religious experience.