Half Laughing, Half Crying

In his various roles as priest, civil rights worker, coffeehouse preacher, playwright, gay rights activist and president of PEN, Boyd has explored how people maintain their humanness in the face of forces that try to break them or reduce them to stereotypes. His outspokenness is reflected in this spiritual autobiography of sorts, a collage of new and previously published essays, prose poems, recollections, parables and fables. ""Christianity does not seem to be on very intimate terms with Jesus Christ,'' writes the author of Are You Runnng With Me, Jesus? His spiky sermons have the power to provoke and challenge. Reminiscences of his early years in Hollywood include an affecting closeup of Mary Pickford, while probing the egomania and despair beneath much showbiz glitter. By turns profound and nostalgic, Boyd's relentlessly honest self-portrait inspires the reader to examine his or her own preconceptions. February 3