Richard Rodriguez's Darling is everything his fans have learned to love: an urbane, witty, sensual meditation on race, religion, sexuality and mortality at the beginning of the 21st century.
Rodriguez tackles many themes, and visits many places, in these personal and provocative essays. (The title essay is a long love song to the women in his life and their spiritual influence, including a profound friendship with one in particular.) As a gay Catholic, he is particularly discerning and touching about his relations with the church he will not leave, even as its hierarchy marginalizes people like him. He captures perfectly how he finds succor and sustenance in Catholic ritual and his fellow faithful--but also how blatantly wounding the church's teachings on sexuality and gender can be. Rodriguez's defense of the right to love those whomever his heart calls him to love is brave, compassionate and inspired.
In addition to the ample breadth of subject matter, Rodriguez's writing style is particularly noteworthy. He is, quite simply, one of the finest prose stylists now writing in English. These essays are discursive gems; there is a subtle musicality to each sentence that adds to his sophisticated and compassionate vision. These are essays pregnant with grief and longing and no less uplifting for that, wonderful and articulate 'good byes' to friends now gone--and a sad but beautiful look into Rodriguez's own encroaching mortality. --Donald Powell, freelance writer