Andrea Raynor is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, a hospice chaplain and a cancer survivor. She served as a chaplain to the morgue at Ground Zero in the aftermath of September 11, offering comfort to the many workers there. Her new book, The Voice That Calls You Home, published by Atria this week, is a collection of essays that explore the connection between the spiritual and the everyday. Raynor lives with her family in Rye, N.Y., where she is the chaplain to the Rye Fire Department.
On your nightstand now:
Nightstand? What nightstand? If you mean that pile of books I have on the floor in the corner of my room, then that is another matter! I always have a volume or two of Rumi nearby (translated by Coleman Barks). This time it is The Essential Rumi and Rumi: The Book of Love. I've been trying to get to The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, which a friend sent me some time ago, and I'm rereading The Places That Scare You by Pema Chodron. I'm hoping this doesn't refer to that space under my dresser!
Favorite book when you were a child:
Old Yeller by Fred Gipson made quite an impression on me. I was eight years old, and it was the first time I remember shutting myself in the bathroom because a book made me cry. I read the last pages over and over from the comfort of that private space, enveloped in the images and the newfound experience of being transported. I also dearly loved The Pricehill Tigers by my dad, Dick Ruehrwein. I will always hear his voice and feel his love on every page. It was he who handed me a copy of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery when I was about 12. It both fascinated and scared me. The isolation of the prince, the foreboding presence of the snake and the prince's death were beyond my grasp, but the whimsical drawings and the mystical nature of the story made it impossible to put down.
Your top five authors:
This is, of course, torturous! How to choose? Different authors have spoken to me at different times in my life. Some of the many that have made a lasting impression: Leo Tolstoy, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Toni Morrison, Ellen Gilchrist, Anne Lamott and Cynthia Rylant.
Book you've faked reading:
Don't tell anyone, but I don't think I've read the whole Book of Revelation. Freaked me out. Hopefully I'll get to it sometime before the Apocalypse (beats trying to get through Finnegan's Wake).
Book you're an evangelist for:
God Went to Beauty School by Cynthia Rylant. There is something so lovely about Rylant's writing. I first encountered her when a friend gave me Cat Heaven after my cat had died. Although it is ostensibly a children's book, I found it utterly comforting; I have given it (and Dog Heaven) to many friends since. In God Went to Beauty School, Rylant is at her creative best, offering images of the Divine that are completely unique. Beloved by Toni Morrison and The Annunciation by Ellen Gilchrist are such staggering works of fiction that I can remember exactly where I was when I read them, what I was feeling, and the push-pull sensation of racing to the finish because you can't put it down, and being sorry when that last page arrived. Since then, I think I've read everything ever written by these two amazing authors.
Book you've bought for the cover:
How to Be Happy, Dammit: A Cynic's Guide to Spiritual Happiness by Karen Salmansohn. This just cracked me up. I loved the cover, loved the title, and thoroughly enjoyed the 44 life lessons presented in an incredibly artistic and cool way. Who knew profundity could be so fun?
Book that changed your life:
Fifteen years after finishing Harvard Divinity School, a friend handed me the only book of spiritual significance I ever really needed to read: Man's Search for Meaning by Dr. Viktor Frankl. When I finished the last sentence, I could not fathom how I managed to get through college (as a religion major) and divinity school without having read this. It has profoundly influenced my thinking, my work and how I cope with my own times of struggle.
Favorite line from a book:
The first time I read Wuthering Heights, I was 17, genuinely anguished to be separated from my first love (who had moved an ocean away) and perfectly positioned to be riveted by the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff. These lines defined for me what it was to be in love. And they continue to haunt and challenge.
Catherine to her servant: "Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind--not as a pleasure, any more than I am a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."
Heathcliff (after Catherine's death): "I believe--I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always--drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Beloved by Toni Morrison. Then, after I have recuperated, any of the Travis McGee mysteries by John D. MacDonald, starting with The Turquoise Lament--just for fun!