The One Sane Milkman, I Fear: The Complex, Abiding Influence of Father Hopkins on John Berryman

Growing up in McAlester, Oklahoma, John Berryman (1914–72) served weekdays as an altar boy for Father Boniface Beri, a Benedictine priest, at the local Catholic church, usually to mostly empty pews. But something about the ritual covered the boy like a woolen blanket, protecting and comforting him, until that was torn from him soon after the family moved to Clearwater, Florida, hoping to reap the benefits of the land boom there. Too soon, however, harbinger as it was to the Great Depression, Boom turned to Bust. Berryman was John Allyn Smith then, but even the name would change, like