Revealer contributor Patton Dodd gets a starred review from Publishers Weekly for his first book, My Faith So Far: A Story of Conversion and Confusion. It’s Slacker meets Thomas Merton, and better than both.

From Publishers Weekly: MY FAITH SO FAR: A Story of Conversion and Confusion Patton Dodd. Jossey-Bass, $21.95 (208 p) ISBN 0-7879-6859-5 Too much pot. Too many beers. Tired of lying to his parents, Patton, 18, is ready to come clean. He goes looking for God at a charismatic megachurch where people are “unabashedly excited about Jesus,” and his life turns around. He speaks in tongues, dances spontaneously during worship services, enrolls at Oral Roberts University. Now a grad student and contributing editor to the webzine killingthebuddha.com, Dodd engagingly recreates two years of passionate faith and excruciating doubt, weaving historical notes and sociological observations into his personal narrative. Though his experience as a fanatically “evangelical, Bible-believing, chest-pounding Christian” was short-lived, Dodd’s tone is sympathetic as well as wryly humorous, and his analysis is usually kind. This lively coming-of-age story succeeds both as literary memoir and as an intimate look at a popular variety of American religious experience.

Fellow Revealer contributor Peter Manseau blurbs the book: “If the evangelical world is in need of its own Thomas Merton, a young writer willing to keep his wit sharp while searching for both sustenance and relevance in his faith, Dodd might be the man for the job.”