Catholicism associated with Latin America and the Caribbean. On a deeper level, O'Gorman demonstrates how the Gothic tradition he traces here builds on and ultimately transforms the persistent image in modern Anglophone literature of Catholicism as "a religion without a country; indeed, a religion inimical to nationhood." O'Gorman focuses on the work of J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, Herman Melville, Kate Chopin, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Cormac McCarthy, and selected contemporary writers including Toni Morrison. These authors, representing historical periods from the early republic to the present day, have distinct experiences of borders within and around their nation and hemisphere, itself an ever-emergent "America." As O'Gorman carefully documents, they also have distinct experiences of Catholicism and distinct ways of imagining the faith, often shaped at least in part within the Church itself. In their narratives, Catholicism plays a complicated and profound role that ultimately challenges longstanding notions of American exceptionalism and individual autonomy. This analysis contributes not only to discourse regarding Gothic literature and nationalism but also to a broader ongoing dialogue regarding religion, secularism, and American literature"-- |