Book Review: ‘Will and Attention,’ by Meghan O’Gieblyn

Meghan O’Gieblyn’s memoir, Will and Attention, examines the collapse of her sobriety and her secret return to the Catholic Church after years of public recovery and intellectual writing about technology and religion. The episode analyze her rejection of the American cultural emphasis on willpower, instead adopting Simone Weil and Iris Murdoch's philosophical concept of attention to understand human temptation and moral division. Rather than offering a neat conversion or recovery narrative, O'Gieblyn explores the profound complexity of the divided self and human helplessness against deeply rooted compulsions. Reviewers highlight how the book connects her strict evangelical upbringing, midlife metaphysical boredom, and secret drinking into an intellectually rigorous inquiry into beauty, grace, and the human condition. Ultimately, the sources describe a work that abandons easy therapeutic solutions in favor of a humble pursuit of truth, acknowledging that true transformation requires looking steadily at the good rather than attempting to forcibly conquer one's faults.

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