The Grateful Beast

In this beautiful and moving book, bestselling author Tim DeRoche makes the case that human beings are hardwired to worship. 

Drawing from evolutionary psychology, he argues that we cannot help but experience life as a gift.  And, whether we admit it or not, our biological instincts leave us yearning for a right relationship with the unseen giver.

What makes us human?  It is the instinct to give and receive gifts from one another.  DeRoche shows how thinkers throughout history have obsessed over issues of reciprocity and social obligation: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friedrich Nietzsche, the anthropologist Marcel Mauss, the Freudian psychologist Ernest Becker, and so many more.  And these themes echo through the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, which can be read as an extended meditation on what it means to be indebted to God for life itself.

The Grateful Beast offers a new take on the plight of modern man, urging us to acknowledge the full mystery of life and to accept the weight of infinite gratitude.   

Tim DeRoche is the bestselling author of The Ballad of Huck & Miguel, a modern-day retelling of Huck Finn set on the Los Angeles River, which was featured on CBS Sunday Morning, NPR, the LA Review of Books, and the Mark Twain Forum.  It was also selected by the Pasadena Public Library as the “One City, One Story” book for the Summer of 2019.

He also wrote A Fine Line, which was featured in the Washington Post and which launched the national watchdog Available to All.  His third book, Tales of Whimsy, Verses of Woe, is a collection of nonsense poetry that received starred reviews from Kirkus and the American Library Association (ALA).  He has written for TIME, USA Today, The Free Press, Unherd, and Literary Hub.

Tim lives with his wife Simone and four young kids in the Foothills of Los Angeles.