David Schickler's The Dark Path is a soul-searching memoir--a sometimes humorous, sometimes harrowing look at one man's pursuit of God, the writing life and a good lay. Schickler, who grew up in a devoutly Catholic family, recalls his boyhood fascination with God and his burgeoning obsession with becoming a priest. However, this is not a traditionally pious autobiography; as a child, Schickler finds solace in "the dark places" away from church, in the out-of-way lots and parks of his boyhood. Then, as Schickler matures and heads to a Jesuit college, encountering women in an intimate and lasting way for the very first time, it becomes an almost mystical event, something as soul-nourishing and God-revealing as anything he's felt in a physical church.
The Dark Path asks tough questions about religion and the presence of God in Schickler's life, yet he never descends to name calling or easy judgments. Schickler is hip to the disparity that sometimes exists between normal, pious behavior and the way God or "lack of God" manifests in the world, and he writes about the transcendent aspect of courtship and sex as well as anyone. He is a master scene setter, quietly finding the emotional jugular time after time, and conveys emotional bravery as he fumbles between faith and flesh, between art and making a living as a writer, with the searing honesty central to all great memoirs. --Donald Powell, freelance writer