BY LOIS WADSWORTH
Six Young Visionaries
In a troubled world.
THE MIRACLE DETECTIVE:
An Investigation of Holy Visions
by Randall Sullivan. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2004.
Hardcover, $25. Eugene reading at 7 pm on April 20 in
the Knight Library Browsing Room, UO campus.
C
alling his new book “a reconciliation
of faith and doubt,” contributing edi-
tor to Rolling Stone magazine,
Randall Sullivan, further noted to a
Publishers Weekly interviewer, “You don’t
have to give up doubt to have faith.”
I had never seen the loaded terms “doubt”
and “faith” used in this way before, much
less deployed in the same sentence. But I was
willing to give Sullivan the opportunity to
dispel my skepticism in his thoroughly
researched investigation into contemporary
holy visions and apparitions of the Virgin
Mary. In the spirit of full disclosure, I must
tell you that I have read only a quarter of this
fascinating, 442 page account. I intend to fin-
ish the book before Sullivan’s 7 pm, April 20
reading at UO Bookstore.
Based on the publisher’s notes, I have not
yet read far enough to learn what happens to
Sullivan when a short information gathering
trip to Bosnia at the end of the 1990s war in
the former Yugoslavia turns into a seven-
week-long visit. It took Sullivan another
eight years to digest his experience in
Medjugorje (Medge-you-gor-yi-a) and put it
in the largest possible context. Randall’s
experience rests on his extensive understand-
ing of the history of the region, the history of
religious sightings, and hundreds of hours of
interviews with theologians and historians
with expertise in the study of holy appari-
tions. Sullivan had access to the Vatican’s
postulators from the Sacred Congregation of
the Causes for Saints, for example.
Sullivan’s account of the six teenagers
who witnessed the first of the apparitions in
Medjugorje is fascinating, even to a non-
believer. These kids were not the devout
Catholics whom the priests might have
believed, They were regular teenagers,
sneaking cigarettes for a clandestine smoke,
hurrying to grow up. Their reports were
given in plain language. And yet, when ques-
tioned separately, each described the visions
using the same words.
My attention was arrested by two specif-
ic details each of the kids reported after the
first appearance. Lights signaled the
approach of the image, then they saw a
woman, wearing a robe. She held a baby in
her arms. First, she uncovered the baby, then
covered it, and uncovered it again before she
left. Second, none of them could see her feet.
She seemed to hover in the air.
The unusual, ritualistic activity of show-
ing and covering the baby remind me of the
strange, mystical details that occur in dreams
that contain numinous figures. Likewise, the
figure’s invisible feet seems authentic to me,
not something kids would make up. Sorry I
can’t tell you more about the book. But this
is enough to keep this skeptic reading for
another 300-plus pages.
Portland resident Sullivan is the author of
numerous short pieces and two other books,
The Price of Experience: Power, Money,
Image, and Murder in Los Angeles and
LAbyrinth, A Detective Investigates the
Murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious
B.I.G..
ew
30 APRIL 8, 2004
BOOK NOTES (A p r il 8 t hr o ug h Ma y 6 ):
Ha r r ie t R ub i n (Dante in Love) reads at 7 pm
on April 13 at Barnes and Noble. …UO Honors
College professor H en r y Al l e y reads his short
story, “The Rembrandt Brotherhood,” at 7:30
pm on April 13 in the Robert D. Clark Library.
M ic h a e l C ur ti s Fo rd (The Last King:
…M
Rome’s Greatest Enemy) reads at 7 pm on
April 13 at Borders Books. …Literary histori-
an P a u l Co l l in s (Not Even Wrong:
Adventures in Autism) reads at 7 pm on
April 14 in the UO Bookstore…Poet M ax i n e
S ca t e s and her workshop students read at 5
pm on April 17 in Tsunami Books. …Friends of
the Eugene Public Library’s A n nu a l B oo k
S a l e April 17 (9 am-4 pm) and April 18 (9 am-
4 pm), Lane County Fairgrounds, Wheeler
Pavilion. …Local poets J i l l L i nn i n ge r, J os e
C h av e z and K a re n F o r d read at 4 pm on
April 18 in Tsunami Books. …Investigative
reporter R a nd a ll S u ll iv a n (The Miracle
Detective) reads at 7 pm on April 20 in the
Knight Library Browsing Room, UO campus.
…Poet M au ry a Si mo n (Ghost Orchid) reads
at 7 pm on April 20 in the Eugene Public
Library, downtown. …UO medievalist W ar re n
G i ns b er g reads from Chaucer and Dante at
4 pm on April 20 in Alumni Lounge
Gerlinger Hall, UO. …National Book Award
for Poetry finalist C a r ol M us ke - Du k e s reads
at 7:30 pm on April 21 in Wieden+Kennedy
Atrium, Portland. Tickets: (503) 227-2583.
…Novelist F re d e ri ck B us c h (A Memory of
War) reads at 8 pm on April 22 in the Knight
Ba r b ar a
Library Browsing Room, UO. …B
E rh e nr ei ch (Nickel and Dimed) speaks at
7:30 pm on April 22 in LaSells Stewart
Ne al
Center, OSU campus, Corvallis. …N
Ba sc om b (The Perfect Mile) reads at 2 pm
W il l ia m L.
on April 25 in UO Bookstore. …W
Su l li va n reads from his book, Cabin Fever
and shows slides of building a long cabin
from scratch at 7 pm on April 28 in the
Knight Library Browsing Room. …Garden
columnist A my St e wa rt (The Earth Moved)
talks about earthworms at 1 pm on May 1 in
A ri e l
Down to Earth Home and Garden. …A
Go r e (Whatever, Mom), editor of Hip Mama
magazine, reads at 7 pm on May 4 in the UO
Bookstore. …Poet and recent National Book
Critics Circle Award-winner B . H . Fa i rc h i ld
(The Art of the Lathe) reads at 8 pm on May
6 in Knight Library Browsing Room, UO
D aw n G . St u ar t talks about book
campus. …D
marketing in the 21st century at 6:30 pm on
May 6 in Baker Downtown Center.