The tug-of-war between his aesthetic aspirations and the humble leap of faith required in Christianity plays out with genuine suspense. He devoured, and tried to imitate, the fiction master John Updike. He devoured Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Greek tragedy and more modern writers like Faulkner and Anthony Burgess. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young GreekĪs a young college student Metaxas already had a hungry, questing mind. He hits an existential wall, and almost hits bottom. There he discovers at the heart of American elite education, amidst all the stained glass, Gothic vaults, and WASP flummery, a vast and bottomless void. Next Eric follows his youthful intellectual and literary ambitions, which goad him to transfer to Yale. Then he gives us a lyrical picture of a fairly idyllic youth in rural Connecticut, where a ravenously curious young man encounters nature, the sites and legacy of the American founding, and later has a brush with … the creepier side of late 1970s sexual mores. Fish Out of Water lovingly (and sometimes scathingly) recounts his childhood in the quirky, earthy, cigarette- scented world of Greece-obsessed Greeks in Queens.

Born to a working-class immigrant parents, Metaxas grew up in Danbury, Conn., and graduated from Yale. Metaxas is a nationally known Christian speaker, thinker, author and broadcaster. Gorgeously written, fun and spiritually enriching, deeply literate and hugely entertaining, it will appeal to everyone from academic scholars to those looking for a great beach read. At once an absorbing confessional memoir, a work of faith, a comedy and a literary achievement, Fish Out of Water by Eric Metaxas is one of the best books I’ve read in 2021.