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Stimulating Company A Gentle Jesuit: Philip Caraman, SJ, 1911-1998, by June Rockett. Leominster, Herefordshire: Gracewing, 2004. 356 pp. £20. Reviewed by John Howard Wilson, Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania.
Evelyn Waugh is a surprisingly persistent presence in this biography of his friend: A Gentle Jesuit is Waugh's phrase, and the book concludes with the panegyric preached by Father Caraman at Waugh's requiem mass. They met in 1948, as Caraman prepared to take over as editor of the Jesuit periodical The Month, and their friendship lasted until Waugh's death in 1966.
One senses why Waugh and Caraman were drawn to each other: both were born in Hampstead, and each grew up with an older brother and a distant father. They knew some of the same people, such as Father Martin D'Arcy and Christopher Hollis,...