Prodigal Son in its broader social and cultural context. What other books on similar themes came out around this time? How did Nouwen’s book compare? In what ways was he speaking to the zeitgeist? I notice that in 1992 the “boomer” generation was longing for new ways to express and feed their spiritual impulses. I show that Nouwen spoke to this generational need and gave them a revised image of the Divine that spoke to their desire for a God of compassion. I show how he gave them (and us) a new entryway into the beauty and scope of Jesus’s message of love. You will see that while Nouwen’s very Christian and Jesus-centered book precluded acclaim by popular culture, it shared many characteristics of the selfhelp and “spiritual but not religious” works of the time, particularly those that, like The Return of the Prodigal Son, drew on psychology, parables, and archetypes to speak to the needs of the day.
The fourth chapter focuses on the book’s impact. How did critics respond? What did his readers have to say? We see that although the book did not receive much attention from the media, reader response was enthusiastic. I look at letters that Nouwen received from his readers and draw out some of the most common reactions. We hear from a prisoner in Ghana whose experience of solitary confinement was changed by his reading of the book, from mothers and fathers struggling with estrangement from their children on how the book gives them courage to wait in joy rather than anger or fear for their return, and we learn of the many people for whom the book changed their relationship with God, and also with themselves. The book opens doors for readers to claim their worthiness of love.
We also look at letters from a minority of readers who were more critical. “Why don’t you look at the female figures in the painting?” wrote several women. “Your depiction of the prodigal son’s return celebrates his ‘being tamed.’ Why does religion smother his youthful, spirited, passionate impulses?” asked one reader. This chapter concludes with a look at the book’s more famous readers, as well as other indicators of how it has inspired contemporary artists to express their experience of the parable and the painting.
Chapter 5 covers Nouwen’s life after the book was published. What impact did it have on Nouwen’s life? Was his aspiration to claim fatherhood ultimately lived out? We see that indeed Nouwen’s life was transformed by “his painting” and that while he never completely overcame his struggles, he was able to live them in a new way. We hear testimonials from people who lived with him after the book was written who describe his almost insatiable desire to welcome and bless members of his Daybreak community. He proclaimed the truth of their belovedness with deep conviction and even urgency. We see that his writing vocation accelerated; he wrote eleven books in four years. This chapter ends with a glimpse of a new “painting” that captured his imagination—a trapeze troupe. His imagination, having absorbed all he could from the Rembrandt image, was captivated by a new expression of God’s reality in our lives.
The final chapter looks at where we are nearly a quarter century later. The Return of the Prodigal Son is Henri Nouwen’s bestselling book. It has sold more than one million copies worldwide and has been translated into thirty-four languages. It continues to outsell all his other books. What accounts for the book’s lasting influence? In what ways is it dated? Prescient? Is it relevant for today’s seekers? I begin by considering Nouwen as prophet, in the sense that he holds up a mirror to ourselves and also to the societal norms of our day. He helps us see our infatuation with youthfulness, our propensity for self-rejection, and how our norms of masculinity distort our image of God. I conclude with speculation rather than answers. I have noted that in subtle ways, The Return of the Prodigal Son indicates that Nouwen seems to have been heading into a territory beyond religious literalism and a gendered/binary God—a direction that many today will welcome and others will find challenging. But this is only my opinion, and as readers of The Return of the Prodigal Son will appreciate, you may disagree. But this is not a problem. This is an invitation to strike your own path toward a life filled with love, hope, and meaning.
A Note About Sources
I have used a variety of sources to piece together the story of how Henri Nouwen’s book The Return of the Prodigal Son came into being. The majority of sources are unpublished and are housed in The Henri J. M. Nouwen Archives and Research Collection at the University of St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto. As the founding archivist for the Nouwen Archives, a position I held for sixteen years, and now as the chief archivist for the Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust, I have a deep knowledge of what material is available for research.
Fortunately, Henri Nouwen kept meticulous records of his writing process. He created files for each book he wrote and this one is no different. The Prodigal Son files I had access to consist of draft manuscripts, notes and comments from his “first” readers for each draft, notes, and revisions from his paid copyeditor Conrad Wieczorek, as well as the totality of his correspondence with his publisher, Doubleday. Information about the Dutch and German editions (which were issued ahead of the American edition) was also readily available in Nouwen’s correspondence files.
In addition to the early drafts of the manuscripts kept by Henri Nouwen himself, I relied on two other sources to trace the chronology of his writing process. One is a typed manuscript that was donated to the Nouwen Archives in 2010. This is what I consider to be the earliest draft of the book. It was written in 1987 and is referred to as the Turner accession (based on the name of the donor). The second is a recording of a retreat that Henri Nouwen gave on the prodigal son in June 1988. This retreat was given in Quebec, Canada, to L’Arche assistants and is referred to as the “Returning” retreat. The transcript from this retreat was eventually edited as Home Tonight by Sue Mosteller (Doubleday, 2009). At times I quote from the transcript of the retreat and others times from Mosteller’s edited work.
In addition to these sources, I relied on correspondence between Nouwen and his close friends Sue Mosteller, Nathan Ball, and others; readers’ letters to Henri Nouwen; administrative files regarding his work as pastor for L’Arche Daybreak; oral history interviews from the Henri Nouwen Oral History Project; Nouwen’s collected material on Anton Boisen that I refer to in chapter 2; and drafts of an unfinished work about the spirituality of the trapeze, known as the Circus Book. Finally, at times I rely on conversations I have had with key figures in Henri Nouwen’s life, including his brother Laurent Nouwen, Sue Mosteller, and Peter Naus.
All quotations of Henri Nouwen from published works will be noted in the text using abbreviations. Quotations from unpublished archival sources and other authors will include a footnote to the source.
A bibliography of all works cited (published and unpublished) is available at the end of the book.
All archival sources have been gratefully published with permission of the Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust.
Henri Nouwen &
The Return of the Prodigal Son
Chapter 1
In the hero stories, the call to go on a journey takes the form of a loss, an error, a wound, an unexplainable longing, or a sense of a mission. When any of these happens to us, we are being summoned to make a transition. It will always mean leaving something behind.… The paradox here is that loss is a path to gain.
—David Richo1
Nouwen walked into Simone Landrien’s office and saw the Rembrandt poster
