Jim FOREST, At Play in the Lion’s Den: A Biography and Memoir of Daniel Berrigan.  Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2017. 336 pages. $28.00 paperback.  ISBN 978-1-62698-248-2.  Reviewed by Arthur J. KUBICK, Providence, RI.

          Daniel Berrigan, Presente!  So reads the heading of the statement by Dan’s family and friends on the day of his death, April 30, 2016.  And Dan Berrigan is very much present in this wonderful biography/memoir by Jim Forest.  Their friendship began in the early 1960s when Dorothy Day brought Jim to hear Dan speak about the church’s social teaching.  “Just like a priest,” was Dorothy’s comment on this early introduction to Dan, noting the academic tone of the prepared paper.  Thankfully this was not the last connection between Jim and Dan.  Several years later they met again in Paris.  Jim became the coordinator of the Catholic Peace Fellowship and remained a close friend─and fellow peace activist─until Dan’s death, bringing a deeply personal perspective to this book. In these pages we meet Dan Berrigan as brother, uncle, friend, poet, activist, care-giver, Jesuit, priest: “at play in the lion’s den” much like the biblical prophet Daniel.  

          Watching Ken Burns’ excellent PBS series, The Vietnam War, my wife and I were surprised that it did not include Dan Berrigan’s anti-war stand: Catonsville draft file burning; travel to North Vietnam to accompany U.S. prisoners of war home; time in prison for anti-war activities.  Perhaps most significant here is the action of the Catonsville Nine in May of 1968, Dan and Phil Berrigan and seven other activists burning draft files with homemade napalm─an action which called attention to the three roots of the war: racism, militarism, colonialism.  As Dan stated at the trial: “Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of good order, the burning of paper instead of children, the angering of the orderlies in the front parlor of the charnel house.  We could not, so help us God, do otherwise...thinking of the Land of Burning Children” 

          It was a controversial action, and immediate reaction was largely negative.  Did nonviolence include the destruction of property?  Initially Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton disagreed with the Catonsville action even while they sympathized with the motives of the Nine. But it did indeed foster conversation around the legitimacy of the war in Vietnam.  Writing in The New Yorker the author James Carroll summed it up well: “For many, many American Catholics, what it meant to be American and what it meant to be Catholic was radically altered by the witness of Daniel Berrigan.”

          But Catonsville is just one piece of the intricate mosaic of Dan Berrigan’s life assembled by Jim Forest.  We meet Dan Berrigan the poet (winner of the 1957 Lamont Poetry Prize for Time Without Number; Prison Poems; Tulips in the Prison Yard), playwright (The Trial of the Catonsville Nine), essayist (No Bars to Manhood; Steadfastness of the Saints; Lights on in the House of the Dead; and author or co-author of more than 50 books.), biblical interpreter (Isaiah: Spirit of Courage, Gift of Tears;  Ezekiel: Visions in the Dust;  Daniel: Under the Siege of the Divine), autobiographer (To Dwell In Peace).  And we meet a Dan Berrigan committed to the deep value of human life from birth to death--”from a child in the womb to a condemned murderer on death row.”  At the heart of this is “outraged love,” Dan’s phrase for the kind of commitment needed to make a difference in the world.  While he found so much in the world outrageous, he was not driven by rage, but rather by love.  Reading this biography challenges the reader to sort through the ways in which “outraged love” moved Dan Berrigan to act and speak─and how that love manifests itself in one’s own life.  While many think first of Dan as a peace activist─his last arrest was on board the USS Intrepid war museum─Jim Forest considers compassion and pastoral care as the primary characteristics of Dan’s life, especially in the later years─caring for persons suffering from AIDS and cancer.  Friendship and care exemplify Dan Berrigan’s life: outrageous love.

          This book may require at least three readings.  First there is the very readable text itself, Jim Forest’s bringing together archival resources and his own memories into a comprehensive story of Dan Berrigan’s life─from his birth in 1921 in Minnesota to his death in 2016 nine days short of his 95th birthday.  Then there are the quotes from Dan’s abundant writings which are found in the margin of nearly every page, quotes connected with the text itself.  Finally the numerous photos spread throughout the book,  illustrating the many facets of Dan’s life, each one speaking to the text.  In fact, you may want to begin by paging through the book for an illustrated tour of Dan’s life.  In whatever order you read through this book, you will find yourself echoing words on the marker for Dan’s grave in Auriesville, New York (once proposed by Dan as his epitaph): “It was never dull, alleluia!”