Susan Rebecca White on ‘The Supper of the Lamb’

When A Cappella Books turns 20 this month, a group of local authors will discuss their favorite works during a two-day marathon schedule. Susan Rebecca White, author of Bound South, chose Robert Farrar Capon’s The Supper of the Lamb. White’s second novel, A Soft Place to Land, will be published May, 2010.

“I chose The Supper of the Lamb because it is a book that takes utter delight in the material world. While ostensibly a cookbook, it’s more of a journey into an odd and compelling mindRobert Farrar Capon’s mind, that is. Take, for example, how Capon spends an hour cutting up an onion, and transforms the entire experience into a wild theological journey. “The first order of business,” he writes, “is to address yourself to the onion at hand...You will note, to begin with, that the onion is a thing, a being, just as you are. Savor that for a moment.” He goes on. And on. An hour later, if you follow his instructions, you will have just finished cutting upand marveling atthe onion. Which sounds tedious, but it is not. Neither is the book. Nor is it preachy, or stuffy, or on any sort of evangelical mission. All Capon wants is for his reader to see the material worldthe known world--through new eyes. To me, this is the mission of all good authors. To take the world that we think we know, that we take for granted, that we continually expect to behave in some pre-determined way, and render it fresh. Robert Farrar Capon manages to pull this off in a big way in The Supper of the Lamb, and that is why I chose this book. That, and it’s the strangest damn thing I’ve ever read.”