A DOOR IN THE OCEAN

This is a story of faith and doubt: a journey that begins with violent death, and ends with self-realisation with exile, parenthood and poverty encountered along the way. It charts the violent origins of one young man's faith and the struggle to find meaning in the midst of life's painful uncertainties.

On a warm September night in 1991, in a quiet neighborhood north of Houston, Texas, David McGlynn?s closest friend and teammate on the high school swimming team is found murdered on his living room floor. As the crime goes unsolved and his friends turn to drugs and violence, McGlynn is vulnerable, rootless, searching for answers. He is drawn into the eccentric world of evangelical Christianity a journey that leads him to a proselytizing campus fellowship in Southern California, on a mission to Australia, and to Salt Lake City, where a second swimming-related tragedy leaves him doubting the authenticity of his beliefs. In his post-evangelical life, he finds himself exiled from his parents, plunged into financial chaos, and caught off-guard by the prospect of fatherhood. McGlynn must ultimately forge a new kind of faith as he reconciles with the past and looks to a more hopeful future. The memoir's concluding chapter, which appeared in The Best American Sports Writing 2009, celebrates the author's love for swimming, the enduring metaphor for his faith and the setting for many of his life?s momentous occasions. David McGlynn grew up in Houston, Texas, and Orange County, California and received his B.A., magna cum laude, from UC Irvine. He went on to earn his MFA in creative writing and PhD in English Literature from the University of Utah. His story collection, THE END OF THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW (SMU Press, 2008), won the 2008 Utah Book Award and was named an "Outstanding Achievement" by the Wisconsin Librarian's Association. His fiction has appeared in numerous publications including Alaska Quarterly Review, Black Warrior Review, Northwest Review, and Mid-Atlantic Review. His nonfiction has appeared in Men?s Health, the Huffington Post, the Literary Review, the Missouri Review, and Best American Sports Writing. He teaches at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, where he lives with his wife and sons.