A Song in the Night: A Memoir of Resilience

A constricting illness sparks an outgoing life in this exuberant memoir. Massie (Loosing the Bonds), an Episcopal priest and environmental activist, suffered from hemophilia that kept him in a wheelchair—its worst effect is crippling joint swelling—in childhood. Sensitized by suffering and forced to live largely in his imagination—his scenes from a daydreaming youth are evocative and touching—he envisioned a vigorous, morally engaged future for himself. That hope came true in spades; even his disability yielded public benefit when, after contracting the HIV virus from tainted blood products, he turned out to be immune to AIDS and became an important subject of medical research. Massie’s eclectic, overachieving career sparks a wealth of cross-cutting insights—most trenchantly when he is simultaneously attending the Harvard Business School and ministering to a blue-collar parish whose flock is on the receiving end of the brutal corporate efficiencies taught in his classes. The narrative sometimes wallows in uplift as the author communes with everyone from Ted Kennedy to Nelson Mandela, and his account of using green investing to nudge and audit companies toward sustainability lacks heft. Still, Massie’s success at shrugging off his fetters makes for a moving saga of faith and perseverance. Agent: Melanie Jackson. (May 12)