C&R Press | April 15, 2022

Many Paths

Bruce McEver

Many Paths is a story of a successful businessman, Bruce McEver, the founder of Berkshire Capital and a global pioneer of investment banking, who is devastated by the sudden and unexpected death of his wife of thirty years, a beautiful and talented opera singer who shared that life with him and gave it meaning. The day following her death, Christmas morning, in a barn yard on the farm where he and his wife lived together, Bruce experiences a hierophany—a physical manifestation of the holy and sacred. Unbelieving its veracity, the revealing of his vision to his minister sets Bruce off on a journey spanning the world, Harvard Divinity School, Joseph Campbell lectures, summer poetry workshops, professorships, new loves and loves lost, health crises and new business.

Many Paths is heartfelt, honest, unflinching, and charged on every page with humor and grace. It takes an under represented view of traditional autobiography, charting a full and unique life that weaves entrepreneurial, spiritual, intellectual, philanthropic and artistic paths together. In this way, Many Paths follows in the tradition of Augustine’s Confessions, J.R. Moehringer’s The Tender Bar, and Jack Welch’s Jack: Straight from the Gut.

Proceeds will benefit The Foundation for Religious Literary.

Interview with Bruce McEver by James Miller | Lifeology Radio

Interview with Bruce McEver by Justin Foster | The Third Way by FosterThinking

Events

Friday, September 16, 2022, at 5:30 pm at Scoville Memorial Library, 38 Main St., Salisbury, CT 06068

Monday, July 18, 2022, at 5:30 pm at Explore Bookstore 221 East Main Street, Aspen, CO, 81611

Wednesday, May 4, 2022, at 6:00 pm at Manuel’s Tavern 602 North Highland Avenue Northeast Atlanta, GA 30307

Thursday, April 21, 2022, at 6:00 pm at The Naples Yacht Club, 700 14th Ave. S., Naples, FL 34102

Thursday, May 5, 2022, at 4:00 pm, at Willson Center 1260 S. Lumpkin St., Athens, Georgia. The University of Georgia Press and the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts present, “A Conversation with Bruce McEver.”

Many Paths

…that very Spirit intercedes
with signs too deep for words.
~ Romans 8:24

Christmas morning, below zero,
the day after she died,
my breath freezing, I am dazed
as I walk into the barnyard,
to recall our happiness with the animals there.
Sagging cedar gates close behind me.
My quarter horse, Cinnamon,
spots me over a hundred yards distant
and begins his long lope. Soon,
his soft nuzzle is rubbing my face, warm,
then her horse and soon, the whole herd,
joined by the goats, and the dog.
They ring me in a circle of compassion.
Touched, yet unbelieving, I look up
into a blinding, cold sun and feel a release—
an energy courses
the length of my body,
and says again, then again:
There are many paths.
Nothing has ever been so clear.

Bruce McEver received an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and an M.T.S. (Religion and Literature) from Harvard Divinity School. An investment banker and the Chairman of Berkshire Capital Securities LLC, a firm he founded in 1983, he is a founding supporter of POETRY at TECH in Atlanta and on the board of The Poet’s House in New York. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Atlanta Review, and The Cortland Review. He is the author of three books of poetry and a memoir, Many Paths (C&R Press 2022).

Advanced Praise

Many Paths is the astonishing record of a lifetime of quests that are – to put it mildly – rare for a successful international entrepreneur. Responding to his muses and spiritual guides as well as to the intricacies of banking, mergers and acquisitions, Bruce McEver has written sheaves of well-observed poetry and taken a master’s in theology to go with his master’s in business administration. Along the paths he has suffered grievous hurts and betrayals yet has been able to surpass these to take joy in life and love, and to express it all in this inspiring autobiography.

Tom Shachtman

Author of The Founding Fortunes, Skyscraper Dreams, and The Day America Crashed

In Many Paths Bruce McEver candidly traces the warp and weft of his life’s journey, from his boyhood in Georgia to the boardroom in Manhattan, around the world many times and back again. His is a remarkable life, sustained by knowledge, art, literature, poetry, nature, music, faith, and love. You won’t forget this testament to finding the ties that bind.

Lisa Bayer

Director, University of Georgia Press

Bruce’s gifts for telling vivid stories and writing evocative poems coalesce in this delightful memoir about a fascinating life and the adventures that made it such. Like the carvings on the totem pole that signify the paths of his life, Bruce’s poems, peppered throughout the book, stand as colorful markers of the events and people that collectively give life meaning and purpose.

Bob Chapman

Chairman & CEO of Barry-Wehmiller
Co-author of Everybody Matters

It’s said that it takes a rich and varied life to produce a robust soul, and that few meet the challenge. Bruce McEver has, and with wings on. As detailed in his gripping autobiography Many Paths, in one lifetime he has not only successfully explored the world of finance as a pioneer of investment banking but has also ventured deep into the world of the spirit. He has known triumph and personal tragedy, war and peace, and makes what he has seen and the lessons he has learned vividly available in a book that, once read, won’t be forgotten.

Jeff Zaleski

Editor and Publisher, Parabola

Using the prism of poetry, Bruce McEver creates a luminous and exhilarating portrait of his life. He guides us through experiences, moments, and peoples that shaped and lit the embers of his soul and mind, whilst bringing him back to the very place he began. This book displays an elegance of thought and a depth of grace and wonder.

Eric L. Motley, PhD

Deputy Director, National Gallery of Art