“If prominent Catholic leaders had taken a pastoral approach akin to the one Francis took a third of a century later, the situation of Catholicism in our society would be very different today.” My interview with OutReach's Michael J. O'Loughlin on THE LAST SUPPER outreach.faith/2025/07/interv…

.Financial Times: THE LAST SUPPER "challenges reductive perceptions of religion’s place in contemporary American life — as either all-powerful ... or altogether absent ... — while revealing the 1980s as the decade when these perceptions set in place." ft.com/content/21f8f8…

"Accomplishes something remarkable and necessary: <it> foregrounds the extraordinary & ineffable in the popular arts, demonstrating how the 'religious point of view' is deeply entwined with the artistic desires to make sense of the world, or subvert it." washingtonexaminer.com/premium/347723…

"As a critic and historian Elie has clarity, depth, and range—qualities that serve him well as he navigates the stormy and turbid high/low waters of his chosen decade’s cultural output" -- from Gerald Howard's review of THE LAST SUPPER in n+1 ...nplusonemag.com/online-only/on…

"THE LAST SUPPER really hits its stride & strikes thematic gold in its climactic crypto-religious coverage of two of the central agons of the decade: the AIDS crisis & the publication of THE SATANIC VERSES & the resulting fatwa against Salman Rushdie." nplusonemag.com/online-only/on…

This "journey among the believers & those who were trying in their imperfect & individual ways to accommodate and harness symbols of belief towards artistic ends left this one-time believer engaged & troubled & in fresh perplexity in the best possible way" nplusonemag.com/online-only/on…

THE LAST SUPPER in Smoky Mountain News: "A deep dive into the music and arts scene of the 1970s and 80s . . . You’ll be transported back to that time, that music, those artists and authors and their more transcendental aspects in a kind of illuminating déja vu." smokymountainnews.com/arts/item/4000…

Just posted: the video of a LAST SUPPER event at the American Writers Museum (American Writers Museum) in Chicago -- really as stimulating a public conversation about my written work as any I can recall. I'm truly grateful for the care taken there youtube.com/watch?v=L0VDwt…

RIP Kevin Cowl, 1965-2025. A great friend and fellow traveler in music, art, and life. Clapton was one of his favorites; I read somewhere that Derek and the D's played "Little Wing," devastated, the night they learned of Jimi's death; devastated I am now youtube.com/watch?v=tTW7hf…

Neat to see THE LAST SUPPER in among F. Scott Fitzgerald, Iris Murdoch, James Schuyler, Mary Gaitskill, Jamaica Kincaid, and Drake on Arts & Letters Daily (Arts & Letters Daily), via Gerald Howard's n+1 review essay aldaily.com

Pleased to share word of a first fall event centered on THE LAST SUPPER: a Zoom conversation and Q&A -- September 17, 7 p.m. ET., hosted by the Hank Center at Loyola University of Chicago (The Hank Center) and moderated by its director, Michael P.Murphy luc.edu/ccih/events/up…

Thrilled that THE LAST SUPPER is now out as an audiobook from Tantor Media (Tantor Publishing), available on Apple, Audible, and other platforms - and with a fresh jacket of Bono circa mid-eighties in characteristic cruciform mode books.apple.com/us/audiobook/t…

Looking forward to discussing THE LAST SUPPER with the first-class novelist Phil Klay (Phil Klay) at Fairfield University on Monday, November 17 -- an event in the university's really aptly named Inspired Writers series . . . events.fairfield.edu/event/paul-eli…

"Paul Elie has blessed us with a dizzyingly diverse survey of the most contentious cultural moments and personalities of the 1980s, with special attention to Catholic artists—practicing, lapsed, or in between" --Aaron James Weisel in Genealogies of Modernity genealogiesofmodernity.org/journal/the-pr…

Proud to be taking part in the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., today; last night's opening event and reception at the Library of Congress gave vivid emphasis to the crucial role of books and writing in American life - past, present, and future loc.gov/events/2025-na….

At the National Book Festival (Library of Congress): Q: What lesson from your book would you share with a student today? A: "Don't accept the age's characterization of itself. We don't live in the Trump Era, folks, and I didn't grow up in the Reagan Eighties" c-span.org/program/call-i…

Looking forward to this conversation with friend and counterpart Michael Murphy about THE LAST SUPPER -- tomorrow, Wednesday, 17th of September, at 7 p.m. Central, 8 p.m. Eastern ...

My latest: a personal essay, in Notre Dame Magazine (Notre Dame Magazine), about the Roman sojourns of James Joyce and my grand-uncle, Bishop Robert F. Joyce, and the ways they intersect with each other's and my own magazine.nd.edu/stories/among-…

A next NYC event for THE LAST SUPPER: a reading and conversation next Tuesday, 10/21, at KGB (KGB Bar and Red Room), 85 East 4th Street, 7:30 p.m., hosted by Commonweal (Commonweal Magazine). Come on by and raise a glass to the crypto-religious ... commonwealmagazine.org/crypto-religio…

Eager to pick up a running conversation with Andrew Sullivan at Georgetown next Monday -- this time about the future of Catholicism, the plight of democracy, and the role of writers and social critics in shaping our institutions and holding them to account events.georgetown.edu/event/34634-co…