Karen EdmistenDeathbed Conversions: Finding Faith at the Finish Line

Very interesting. Enjoyed it a lot.

Ms. Edmisten has a nice, clear writing style and sticks to her mission. I wanted more info on some of the personalities and this whetted my appetite.

Karen Edmisten does an amazing job of capturing the lives and deaths of 13 famous Catholic converts.Famous, I should mention, in almost all cases not for their deathbed conversions, but for their exuberant, chaotic, and seemingly tragic lives played out in the public eye.The beauty of this book, however, is that it shows that no life is tragic which ends in God's embrace. With the stories of the Hollywood celebrities, especially, I found myself surprised by the loneliness and unhappiness that dogged these poor lost souls, and by the time they (and I) reached the end of the chapters, their coming home to Christ and the Church was a profound consolation for both of us!The most beautiful lesson the author presents is the one she explains at the outset: it is no stroke of great luck to have your surrender to God delayed until after the party. We might have imagined that the deathbed convert is a man or woman who has drunk deeply of life's chalice of pleasure, only to drink deeply of God's love at the end, and for all eternity. How fair is that, as the older brother of the prodigal son asked, for those who have been faithful -- and hardworking and sacrificial -- from the beginning?The stories here provide a much more vivid and authentic reality than the one the complaining brother imagined. The reality, namely, of the deathbed convert as someone who, having believed the devil's lies and fruitlessly and desperately chased pleasure and elusive happiness for decades, is finally shown the truth when it is too late to recover those lost years and energies.Again and again, though, God's love conquers all. He will eternally make up the lost time to these converts and all converts--and it is a joy to have this book to remind us of how persistently He pursues the souls of His beloved sons and daughters.I hope many readers find this book. Because of the famous people featured, the book is fascinating to read -- like a People magazine you find in the doctor's office and can't help but page through. And yet when you put this book down, unlike when you put down a gossipy magazine, you realize much more about human nature and God's merciful love than when you started. God bless Karen Edmisten for writing such a fine and edifying book!

My confessor recommended this book to me. No, no, not as a penance! But as a terrific favor. I ordered it last Monday, received it on Friday, and finished it on Saturday. Although I'm not sure I'm finished with it yet...it's one of those books one wants to keep going back to.Subtitled "Finding Faith at the Finish Line," Karen Edmisten's book made me want to throw a party. Perhaps an odd reaction to a book with the word "deathbed" in the title, but all the same.It's a little book...you can read it in a few hours...But if you're like me (yikes! If you are, say an Ave, and quickly!)......Ahem. If you and I share similar traits? You will want to put this book down. Why? Because you don't want it to end!Despite Edmisten's claim (and of course I believe her) that the book was not as easy to write as she'd expected, I get the distinct impression that she had an absolute blast during the undertaking. I know I had a ball reading it!Dutch Schultz. John Wayne. Gary Cooper. Oscar Wilde, for Heaven's sake!Yep. All of 'em converted to Catholicism...just before entering their final reward.How bleeping cool is that!Want to know how cool it is? Read the book!You'll discover a healthily brief bit about the lives of "finish line converts" but you'll learn even something more valuable...how to be really and effectively be a soldier for Christ. How to be one of those people who helps bring that atheist you love so much...that spouse or niece or child or friend who hates religion...that stranger you pass in the street...how to help do for them what we're supposed to do for each other: make the path into the Kingdom of God bright and well-lit.Edmisten's own conversion story, tucked into the forward titled "Don't Ever Give Up," should be required reading for any aspiring evangelist. Part of her dedication says so much, in so few words:"With deepest gratitude to everyone who ever uttered a prayer for me..."I could go on but I'd be sorely tempted to add spoilers and I don't want to do that. I want you to read the book. And I pray that you and I do what the people associated with the converts in this book do: help each other into Heaven.Thank you, Karen Edmisten, for a really, really good read! Well played. Very well played.

Was anyone else as distressed as I was by the inclusion of Alexis Carrel? Yes, he won the 1912 Nobel Peace Prize, but he also served as a regent for the "French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems during Vichy France which implemented the eugenics policies there; his association with the Foundation, and with Jacques Doriot's ultra-nationalist PPF, led to investigations of collaborating with the Nazis, but he died before any trial could be held." While I certainly believe in "Judge not, lest ye be judged," the inclusion of such a man, with no mention of his 1930s activities, was disturbing to say the least: both the assumption that readers would not know or (more alarming) that the author herself did not know! Other than that, it's an inch deep and a mile wide and more acceptable as a Reader's Digest book than something purporting to be of Catholic scholarship.