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Lessons and Carols: A Meditation on Recovery
Maybe redemption is not a place you find, but a system of mapmaking. Sketch a land. Pencil in dragons. Imagine it real, resplendent, and broken under a waxing moon.
Lessons and Carols is a genre-bending memoir that explores the aftershocks of alcoholism and mental illness through a fresh look at the powers of poetry, ritual, and community. As a new parent, West grapples with his own fragmented recovery and grief for the friends he lost to addiction, asking if anyone can really change, or if we are always bound to repeat the past.
Echoing the form of a traditional Anglican Christmas service of stories and songs, West’s lyrical prose invites readers into an unorthodox rendition of the liturgy called Lessons and Carols. Each December, a faithful circle of irreligious friends assembles to eat and sing and re-imagine an old story about love made flesh. In that gathering’s glow, resentments turn to quiet wonder at the ways a better world can appear.
Both tender and bracing, West’s poetic meditation of the possibilities of change will resonate deeply with anyone who has tired of their own destructive loops. In this stirring account of recovery, redemption remains elusive—and also a promise as tangible as a newborn.
Hardscrabble winter, gray and lonely, requires Christmas. Or, rather, in its depths, I require Christmas: words no longer cold, chrome, and barren, but alive, golden, cradled in my arms.
Lessons and Carols is a genre-bending memoir that explores the aftershocks of alcoholism and mental illness through a fresh look at the powers of poetry, ritual, and community. As a new parent, West grapples with his own fragmented recovery and grief for the friends he lost to addiction, asking if anyone can really change, or if we are always bound to repeat the past.
Echoing the form of a traditional Anglican Christmas service of stories and songs, West’s lyrical prose invites readers into an unorthodox rendition of the liturgy called Lessons and Carols. Each December, a faithful circle of irreligious friends assembles to eat and sing and re-imagine an old story about love made flesh. In that gathering’s glow, resentments turn to quiet wonder at the ways a better world can appear.
Both tender and bracing, West’s poetic meditation of the possibilities of change will resonate deeply with anyone who has tired of their own destructive loops. In this stirring account of recovery, redemption remains elusive—and also a promise as tangible as a newborn.
Hardscrabble winter, gray and lonely, requires Christmas. Or, rather, in its depths, I require Christmas: words no longer cold, chrome, and barren, but alive, golden, cradled in my arms.
- GenresNonfictionMemoir
207 pages, Hardcover
Published May 2, 2023
About the author
John West
3 books20 followersJohn West is a writer and technologist. He reports the news with code at the Wall Street Journal, where his work has received multiple awards including two Pulitzer prizes.
The Boston Globe called his first book, Lessons and Carols, “lyrical and crystalline.” His second book, The Internet Will Die, and So Will You, a digital memento mori, is expected in September, 2026. His first novel, The Psalmist, is coming in January, 2027.
He holds an M.F.A. in writing from the Bennington Writing Seminars and degrees in philosophy and music performance from Oberlin College. He lives outside Kingston, New York, with his partner, children, and unruly cat.
The Boston Globe called his first book, Lessons and Carols, “lyrical and crystalline.” His second book, The Internet Will Die, and So Will You, a digital memento mori, is expected in September, 2026. His first novel, The Psalmist, is coming in January, 2027.
He holds an M.F.A. in writing from the Bennington Writing Seminars and degrees in philosophy and music performance from Oberlin College. He lives outside Kingston, New York, with his partner, children, and unruly cat.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
April 1, 2023
I may be biased, but I think it’s worth your time!
September 11, 2022
The only book to make me sob this year. I don’t have words yet to tell you why you must read this meditation.
Read
September 7, 2026Incredible. Just incredible.
Anyone who loves Christmas, babies, life, or hates any of the above should read. I cannot recommend this enough.
Anyone who loves Christmas, babies, life, or hates any of the above should read. I cannot recommend this enough.
July 8, 2023
Absolutely outstanding. One of the best books I have read in a long time.
July 1, 2024
I almost didn’t buy this book. It was in the Christian section of the bookstore, and it didn’t seem like a particularly religious book. I ended up reading g it in just over 24 hours. I could relate to the poetic prose from someone who, like me, has had to navigate life with bipolar disorder and an addiction—John West’s is alcoholism, mine is a behavioral addiction. Although I am an actively practicing Christian, I could relate to John’s questions and need for ritual as what I would describe him as a believing atheist. His faith, such as it is, rings authentic. And I mourn with him the losses of friends to addiction. I’ve been there.
And, as a reminder, if you need help, call the National Crisis Line, 988. You are worth it!
And, as a reminder, if you need help, call the National Crisis Line, 988. You are worth it!
Read
July 4, 2023I am so grateful for this work ._Lessons and Carols_ assembles fragments to gather a fullness of what is broken and hungry in the human (addiction, illness, loss), in to form, into a ritual and primer for becoming.
Why not just tell it straight--I was depressed, am less so, but will be probably depressed again; before, I couldn't find love, but now I think I have, but it might end badly at some point; I was an atheist and now I might be a sort of believing atheist and Christian at the same time?
Well, the events and spiritual reality and recovery represented in the work all require a sense of repetition (is this happening AGAIN? this is happening again! this always happens! this is happening eternally) and also movement forward--not progress exactly, but be/coming. How much, then, Christmas, the word becoming flesh, the fullness of time and fruitfulness of incarnation, injects the becoming of recovery/parenthood/love through utter fallenness/speaking/art making with a holy awe a kind of theodicy.
The form of lessons and carols--that great Advent service, along with the use of present tense (indeed quite risky and acknoweldged as such) and the shifting back and forth in time are the ways this texts wrestles (here picture Jacob and the angel) valiantly with the narrative/genre pressure of conversion/deconversion, the narrative/genre pressure of recovery (from depression, from bipolar, from addiction) without relapse + the narrative pressure of love story. And what is the result? A way to address the problem of belief, the problem of fallenness, the problem of being/healing itself.
Here, we have time-full ness pushed beyond the very limit--toward incarnation, beyond "to be" and toward "to become."
Moves I appreciated: the "After Catullus" bits interspersed, which have a sense of kinship with Anne Carson's Nox, another formally innovative work of grieving that relies on Catullus. The scriptural rewordings. The rich formation of the author in music and in multiple fields (the one who has been so formed by liberal arts knows how much you need ALL the fields to come together in THIS field, to think through these questions!). Citations of Ashbery's "Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror," which is a great poem, which I, too, wish I'd have read enough to memorize.
I've been longing for more of the sort of work takes something like Fanny Howe's wary grammar of mysticism (or do we need something broader? Maybe Graywolf Press's works of formal innovation and linguistic/aesthetic experimentation and allows these to engage with the full range of the theological--yes apophatic, but even (what?!) evangelical. I am SO grateful for the works coming out from Eerdmans in this line. MORE MORE MORE MORE! *
I would love to see this author more fully consider the possibilities of the sentence itself in his next work. The small meditation/the fragment are useful and powerful in their arrangement here, and juxtaposition is important as an organizational principle. But the sentence has more for this author, I think, than is yet found here. That said, I am 100% behind (and buoyed personally by) the mercy that gives us any sentences at all, given how hard everything is, always. I'm so grateful for this work. But it took me a little while to see its gorgeousness--I had to live with it first, immerse, keep going. But more intent pressure on the sentence would, I think, reveal the glory sooner. I was thinking while reading, about Kiese Laymon (Long Division and the contests in sentence writing and Heavy--his training in writing sentences) and Fanny Howe (she has this idea that the sentence is sort of a problem because it implies a temporality and a logic). This comment is, I think, as much about myself and my own writing as West's--call it feeling called to develop/become my own self.
Thanks, John West, for this work.
*I've been delighted to work with the editor of this book on a volume that has likewise unusual structure--I was so nervous at first that she'd want me to untangle the oddity, but nope--this was their jam. Finding the other books in this series is a true delight for me.
Why not just tell it straight--I was depressed, am less so, but will be probably depressed again; before, I couldn't find love, but now I think I have, but it might end badly at some point; I was an atheist and now I might be a sort of believing atheist and Christian at the same time?
Well, the events and spiritual reality and recovery represented in the work all require a sense of repetition (is this happening AGAIN? this is happening again! this always happens! this is happening eternally) and also movement forward--not progress exactly, but be/coming. How much, then, Christmas, the word becoming flesh, the fullness of time and fruitfulness of incarnation, injects the becoming of recovery/parenthood/love through utter fallenness/speaking/art making with a holy awe a kind of theodicy.
The form of lessons and carols--that great Advent service, along with the use of present tense (indeed quite risky and acknoweldged as such) and the shifting back and forth in time are the ways this texts wrestles (here picture Jacob and the angel) valiantly with the narrative/genre pressure of conversion/deconversion, the narrative/genre pressure of recovery (from depression, from bipolar, from addiction) without relapse + the narrative pressure of love story. And what is the result? A way to address the problem of belief, the problem of fallenness, the problem of being/healing itself.
Here, we have time-full ness pushed beyond the very limit--toward incarnation, beyond "to be" and toward "to become."
Moves I appreciated: the "After Catullus" bits interspersed, which have a sense of kinship with Anne Carson's Nox, another formally innovative work of grieving that relies on Catullus. The scriptural rewordings. The rich formation of the author in music and in multiple fields (the one who has been so formed by liberal arts knows how much you need ALL the fields to come together in THIS field, to think through these questions!). Citations of Ashbery's "Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror," which is a great poem, which I, too, wish I'd have read enough to memorize.
I've been longing for more of the sort of work takes something like Fanny Howe's wary grammar of mysticism (or do we need something broader? Maybe Graywolf Press's works of formal innovation and linguistic/aesthetic experimentation and allows these to engage with the full range of the theological--yes apophatic, but even (what?!) evangelical. I am SO grateful for the works coming out from Eerdmans in this line. MORE MORE MORE MORE! *
I would love to see this author more fully consider the possibilities of the sentence itself in his next work. The small meditation/the fragment are useful and powerful in their arrangement here, and juxtaposition is important as an organizational principle. But the sentence has more for this author, I think, than is yet found here. That said, I am 100% behind (and buoyed personally by) the mercy that gives us any sentences at all, given how hard everything is, always. I'm so grateful for this work. But it took me a little while to see its gorgeousness--I had to live with it first, immerse, keep going. But more intent pressure on the sentence would, I think, reveal the glory sooner. I was thinking while reading, about Kiese Laymon (Long Division and the contests in sentence writing and Heavy--his training in writing sentences) and Fanny Howe (she has this idea that the sentence is sort of a problem because it implies a temporality and a logic). This comment is, I think, as much about myself and my own writing as West's--call it feeling called to develop/become my own self.
Thanks, John West, for this work.
*I've been delighted to work with the editor of this book on a volume that has likewise unusual structure--I was so nervous at first that she'd want me to untangle the oddity, but nope--this was their jam. Finding the other books in this series is a true delight for me.
September 2, 2023
it's kind of weird to say i "like" this book - i appreciate it, maybe? it's one where the marketing/summary seems (is?) completely unrelated to the actual words: like someone read one page of it and then wrote the jacket copy. he quotes Wittgenstein at some point, so maybe that's what i mean, the summary words don't seem to relate to their object. (i've never read W - only derivations of). it's fragments, it's meditation on shame, resentment, making choices you know will hurt people, know will hurt yourself most of all. mixed with elegies for friends lost. but all of this is actually just talking around what it is, also.
i am intrigued, want to pull off a friends L&C, though i've done versions of this- my musician friends create a super modern artsy form of it at a local church each year, & i've been privileged to be involved in some of the non-music details, finding art to go with the songs, program & quotes/poems formatting, decorating the lobby to reflect the year's theme. a lot of them probably think it's weird that i love coming to each rehearsal, love to hear the songs morph and be learned and shaped into the final experience. what i've been part of too, almost more like what he's describing, is a "Sufjan xmas singalong" even though my friends know i can't sing. and i don't know most of the songs. have come to love Sister Winter, though. we haven't done it the past few years because (gestures wildly) & they all have multiple kids now even though kids are welcome too, &c &c. i miss the pure joy of it, hearing my friends' voices, laughing at everything, squeezing together on the couches, brightening a cold dark night. that's what this book does, too. brighten. Yes.
i am intrigued, want to pull off a friends L&C, though i've done versions of this- my musician friends create a super modern artsy form of it at a local church each year, & i've been privileged to be involved in some of the non-music details, finding art to go with the songs, program & quotes/poems formatting, decorating the lobby to reflect the year's theme. a lot of them probably think it's weird that i love coming to each rehearsal, love to hear the songs morph and be learned and shaped into the final experience. what i've been part of too, almost more like what he's describing, is a "Sufjan xmas singalong" even though my friends know i can't sing. and i don't know most of the songs. have come to love Sister Winter, though. we haven't done it the past few years because (gestures wildly) & they all have multiple kids now even though kids are welcome too, &c &c. i miss the pure joy of it, hearing my friends' voices, laughing at everything, squeezing together on the couches, brightening a cold dark night. that's what this book does, too. brighten. Yes.
May 6, 2023
This beautifully-written memoir uses an experimental form to explore mental illness and recovery, faith and ritual, new parenthood, and the fraught relationship between experience and time. The form is inspired by the traditional Episcopalian “lessons and carols” service which we observe in the season leading up to Christmas. In a way, this book is both a Christmas story and an Easter story: birth and rebirth. And recovery itself is both rebirth and repentance, an ongoing metanoia: “…I, too, am not sure about this bargain we’ve each made—life at the cost of total change.” The nonlinear, fragmentary form reflects the nonlinear journey of sobriety and mental wellness. As a reader who struggles with several forms of mental illness, this book helped me feel less alone. Thank you, John West.
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P.S. if you’re into craft essays, West had a great essay in LitHub last month, “Time and Materials: On the Art of the Experimental Memoir” check it out!
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P.S. if you’re into craft essays, West had a great essay in LitHub last month, “Time and Materials: On the Art of the Experimental Memoir” check it out!
June 1, 2023
Full Disclosure: I acquired and edited this book. Which means I've spent A LOT of time with it. And there are still passages that take my breath away when I dip back into it. Such a beautifully observed journey toward sobriety while grappling with mental illness. John also falls in and out of love with both men and women, develops abiding friendships, becomes a parent. Like life, this book defies easy categorization and readers are all the better for it. Highly recommend!
October 15, 2023
So so so good! Really interesting and palatable format, when I sat down and read it I read it very fast and easy - but it doesn’t lose any of its meaning! Really meaningful look into sobriety and marriage and Christianity (?) (emphasis on the question mark!) I really really loved
November 13, 2023
One of the most beautiful books I have ever read. Truly. John’s prose is incredible- poetic, vivid, filled with clever metaphors and deep-rooted existentialism. I am extremely grateful for the friend who recommended this book to me.
January 28, 2024
4.5
Really beautiful, loved the interwoven Catullus.
Being that parts of West’s life were spent in Minneapolis and Chicago, I kept expecting to encounter people I know, but maybe that’s because I felt kinship in addition to the geographical similarities.
Really beautiful, loved the interwoven Catullus.
Being that parts of West’s life were spent in Minneapolis and Chicago, I kept expecting to encounter people I know, but maybe that’s because I felt kinship in addition to the geographical similarities.
January 25, 2026
I devoured this in one sitting. It's not normally the kind of genre I go for, but I appreciated John West's rawness and vulnerability. There's a realness to his writing that shines through in a painful yet hopeful way.
June 8, 2023
Read it again and again.
July 14, 2023
Not what I expected, at all, and devastatingly beautiful at the same time.
November 21, 2023
devastating, vulnerable, beautiful. i think i will read it every christmas from now on
December 20, 2023
I found this book stunningly beautiful, honest, and inspired. A real whopper. I've recommended it to many people since.
January 6, 2024
I know I'm only 5 days into 2024, but this is one of the best books I've read in 2024, and that's only because the other one was by Toni Morrison.
July 25, 2023
John West says that “Joy in life comes when one does away with the idea that originality is a virtue or even possible.” However I would describe this as close to a unique work as possible. Intertwining faith and doubt, past and present, addiction and recovery West takes us through theological questions, anxiety about child rearing, and youthful college adventures with beauty and challenge. Highly recommended
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews