In 1990, the fledgling poet and classics student Andrew Krivak embarked on a literally soul-searching journey that would transform his understanding of faith, love, and, most of all, himself. He entered the Society of Jesus, committing the next years of his life to intensive Jesuit training that called for periods of extended silence and self-reflection as well as a deep immersion in impoverished communities around the world.

A memoir that captures an essential quest for meaning and fulfillment --- a universal quest that everyone must at some point face --- A Long Retreat brims with stirring anecdotes and provocative observations about the very heart of a religious life. Within the Jesuit community, Krivak discovered a path that often posed difficult choices. After eight years, the obligation to remain unmarried posed the greatest dilemma, although religious obedience was an equally challenging vow to live. Krivak ultimately left the Society and married the woman he describes falling in love with in the book, a woman who shared his love for God and with whom he would create a joyous family. Yet the awakenings he experienced as a Jesuit, while traveling to inner cities and faraway locales, ministering to AIDS patients, or testing his wings as a college professor, would spur in him a keen, lasting awareness of his fellow human beings. The result was a perspective of infinite hope, which his personal story imparts to all who read it.