Sinners and Saints

TONY HENDRA'S MEMOIR OF REDEMPTION

If, as is often said, comedy is merely the recognition of truth, then Tony Hendra's new book, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul (Random House), explains why comics are so often drawn from the ranks of the spiritually troubled, or those otherwise compelled to seek the truth. Hendra, whose stellar career as a satirical writer spans National Lampoon and Spy, and who appeared as Ian Faith in the movie This Is Spinal Tap, is no stranger to the temperament of comic madness, having worked closely with John Belushi and Peter Sellers. His book is a poignant and humble memoir of a hilarious and sinful life. Of course, it's not the dissipation of self (via the usual routine of sex and drugs) that counts; as any good sinner like Hendra knows, it's redemption—in his case, under the gentle moral guidance of a Benedictine monk (who lends the book its title and tries to instill in his charge the notion of contemptus mundi, which Hendra describes as detachment from the world). His book is a eulogy for a man with big ears who, he writes, was "a lighthouse of faith blinking away through the oceanic fogs of success and money and celebrity and possessions."

EDWARD HELMORE

FOR DETAILS, SEE CREDITS PAGE