What happens when your old English teacher becomes a published author and, years later, your paths unexpectedly cross again through the Catholic faith?

Author and educator Roy Peachey once taught our Director, Stefan Kaminski, English at secondary school. After Roy became a Catholic, the two found themselves back in contact through the Church and the Christian Heritage Centre.

Roy previously delivered an online CHC talk about literature. Now, he has published two new books for very different audiences.

His adult novel, The Garden of Perfect Clarity, is published by Os Justi Press and has already received praise from several distinguished writers. It brings together Roy’s longstanding interests in literature, education and faith, as well as the questions that stories can help us explore.

Explaining the thinking behind the novel, Roy says:

“The Garden of Perfect Clarity is a coming of age novel that addresses some big themes, including love, loss, family, education, time, history, political unrest and healing.

“It is a literary novel that explores a world in which Christian beliefs and symbols have been largely forgotten, though their challenging presence remains. In writing about China after the expulsion of the Jesuits, I was describing a post Christian society which, in some ways, parallels our own.

“The novel is therefore about the main character’s search for meaning, a search that leads him beyond the pages of the book to a liturgical completion that he only dimly understands during his journey through life.

“Having recently completed a PhD on liturgy and literature in the 20th and 21st centuries, I aimed to expand the boundaries of Catholic fiction in my own novel, while remaining in the tradition established by Newman, Tolkien, Waugh, George Mackay Brown and others.”

The Garden of Perfect Clarity is available now from Waterstones and other leading booksellers.

Roy’s second book, Jack’s Acorn, is a children’s novel published by Isaiah Books in support of Mary’s Meals.

The adventure begins with one very small acorn dropped through a crack in the kitchen floorboards. From there grows an imaginative story filled with a quirky family, curious giants, an extraordinary pet goose and playful references to familiar fairy tales and nursery rhymes.

How does a small idea grow into a finished novel? Can fiction help us explore faith and some of life’s biggest questions? And what does it really take to become a published writer?

We hope to put those questions to Roy in a forthcoming interview for the Christian Heritage Centre’s YouTube channel.

Look out for our conversation with Roy Peachey, coming soon.