Anne Lamott’s divine comedy: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith.By Anne Lamott. Pantheon, 275 pp.

Read the sidebar interview, 'God lets me start over.'

To say that Anne Lamott is a born-again Christian is to invite misunderstanding, for she is also an irreverent child of the 1960s, a lifelong Democrat and a comedian. And, though she writes about a life-changing encounter with Christ, she does not pretend to have gotten her life completely together. She continues to struggle with despair, her own ego and relationships with men. With her characteristic self-deprecating honesty and savage wit, she labels herself a "bad born-again Christian."

Lamott's blend of candor and humor has created a group of avid fans, many of whom have followed her essays and novels since Operating Instructions, the 1994 book about being a single parent. (She describes it now as her "black-humored . . . anti-George Bush baby book.") According to one fan, writing in the on-line journal Salon, Lamott "shows me pieces of life that are usually left for dead. . . . I trust her to tell the truth. I figure no one can make up the crazy stuff she writes."