Seeds of unorthodoxy : eccentric paths from Olean, Europe, and Brooklyn to Morningside Heights
Spiritual hippies : writing, carousing, praying in Olean; taking over Jester; Lax published in the New Yorker
The war, the monk, the Manhattanites : Merton to Gethsemani; Lax to the New Yorker; Rice a godfather again
Literary triumphs : Merton writes Seven storey mountain; Lax, after stints with Time and Hollywood, writes Circus classic; Rice leaves Pathé to start Jubilee
Jubilee's heyday : Rice the mastermind; Lax the rover; Merton a major contributor; Circus comes out
Vatican II before and after : Jubilee interprets the council
Romances, deaths : the nurse; loss of Columbia pals, then Jubilee
Odysseys : Lax, Rice, and Merton more deeply into eastern religions; Rice travels; Merton outraged at Vietnam War, disillusioned with Vatican II; final meetings at Gethsemani; Merton's death in Bangkok
Laurels : Merton's corpus grows post-mortem; Lax's poems hailed; Rice writes a controversial Merton biography
Merton movement : Merton chapters formed worldwide; books by Lax and Rice praised; Rice remarries, then loses Susanna
Legacy : impact of all three on a troubled American Catholicism.
