Holy Saturday

This extraordinary memoir offers a roadmap through the challenging landscape of profound loss.

When Gary Hauk's teenage son, Thomas, suffered a cardiac arrest in the middle of one terrible night, it launched Hauk into an unexpected journey through grief, faith, and the search for meaning. As both an academic and a person of faith, Hauk offers a vulnerable, beautifully written perspective on this heart-wrenching experience.

Through intimate emails, journal entries, and profound theological reflections, he documents the seven-week period from his son's hospitalization to his eventual passing, and the transformative journey that followed. Readers experience an unprecedented exploration of loss, while Hauk’s raw honesty about his struggles with faith and meaning offers comfort to those facing similar challenges.

The memoir's powerful metaphor of Holy Saturday — the time between death and resurrection — provides a framework for understanding the liminal space of grief.

This remarkable memoir offers more than just a story of loss — it provides signposts and waysides for anyone navigating the complex terrain of grief and faith. Through Hauk's masterful blend of personal narrative and spiritual insight, readers will find solace and strength for their own journey.

Gary Hauk served in the President’s Office of Emory University for more than thirty years, working with four Emory presidents as vice president and secretary of the University and later as deputy and then senior adviser to the president. He has taught freshman English, ethics, and history. In 2015, after serving as the unofficial historian of Emory for many years, he was named the first official historian of the University. He has written or edited five books about Emory, including, most recently, Emory as Place: Meaning in a University Landscape (University of Georgia Press, 2019), which blends personal memoir, history, and archival photography.  

Gary earned his PhD in religion from the Laney Graduate School at Emory and holds BA and MA degrees in English from Lehigh University and a divinity degree from the Methodist Theological School in Ohio. Since retiring from Emory in January 2020, he has continued to work as a freelance editor and writer and as an advocate for the role of the humanities in civic life.