Coal to Cream: A Black Man's Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race
by Eugene Robinson
Edition: Hardcover
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
A tantalizing look at a multifaceted life, December 26, 2008


As a white man, I'm sure I'll never really understand what it's like to be black in America. It's simply not possible. But Gene Robinson does his level best to give me a glimpse into that dilemma. The truth is, I think I was hoping for more of an in-depth memoir from Robinson, a man I grew to like and admire during the just completed presidential primaries and elections when I would see him often on Hardball or other cable news programs, offering his opinions. Robinson seems to me to be a man who has a pretty good sense of self, and also possesses a healthy sense of humor in the way he looks at life. I like that in a man. Some of that came out in COAL TO CREAM, but not enough, probably because it is, of course, about such a deadly serious topic: race and color barriers. Robinson's tales of his job assignments in South America (particularly Rio, in Brazil) and London are eye-opening, and he makes his case well about the continuing skin-color spectrum and how it operates in those countries. His initial enchantment and final disillusionment with how color is handled in Brazil is very reasoned and well thought out. But I'm most interested in personal stories, so I kept wishing throughout the book that there were more about his boyhood in South Carolina, his college years in Ann Arbor, and how he met and fell in love with Avis, his wife. Because they sound like such warm and interesting people. But maybe he'll get around to all that some other time, or at least I hope so, because he's a very good writer. - Tim Bazzett, author of Pinhead: A Love Story Comment | Permalink


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Coming into the End Zone: A Memoir
by Doris Grumbach
Edition: Paperback
Availability: Out of Print--Limited Availability
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And she scores!, December 22, 2008


I first read COMING INTO THE END ZONE maybe ten years ago, and I vaguely remember that I enjoyed it enough to send it across country to my mother, who was just over 80 at the time. Because Grumbach wrote this book about the momentousness of approaching and passing her 70th birthday; it was/is a kind of diary of meditations and musings on both the joys and sadnesses of aging and death. She rages especially at the awful scourge of AIDS which has taken so many of her close friends and colleagues and mourns their deaths. A writer of novels, stories and essays, a teacher and a long-time reviewer of books, she makes a comment I found I could easily identify with, particularly in the past few years, as I approach 65 and have begun to re-read favorite books. She says: "For so long, because reading has become for me a kind of forced labor, I am required to have an opinion about everything. I never open a book without a pencil and pad at hand, to record what I think as I go along. Now, more and more, I am determined no longer to read in that way, but to reread, slowly. To have a usable, publishable opinion no long matters to me. Enjoyment was my impetus to read, sixty-seven years ago, in the first place. I expect now to return to that simple spur."

For some unknown reason, my mother, still a voracious reader today at 92, put Grumbach's book aside when I first sent it to her, and only recently finally read the book and returned it to me, apologizing for keeping it so long and praising its thoughtful musings, its wisdom. I opened it up to refresh my memory (admittedly not such an acute organ anymore), and found myself caught up in Grumbach's story once again, and ended up re-reading the whole book. Perhaps it meant even more to my 64 yr-old self than it did to who I was at 55. I was reminded also as I reread END ZONE - slowly this time - of another favorite book about the aging process, the late John Jerome's lovely memoir, On Turning Sixty-five. (I may have to re-read that one now too.)

Grumbach quotes the poet Ezra pound, who, near the end of his life, told a friend, "Nothing really matters, does it?" A fatalistic, perhaps sad thing to say - and to hear. At this point in my life, I don't agree with Pound though. Good books always matter, and this is one. Doris Grumbach, as far as I know, is still around, nearly ninety now. She's another one of those people I'd like to sit and talk about books with over a cup of coffee. Since she's obviously so much better read than a bumpkin like me will ever be, I might feel a bit of an idiot, but I don't think she'd allow that. I think she'd recognize a kindred soul - another lover of books - and we'd have a jolly good chat. - Tim Bazzett, author of the REED CITY BOY trilogy
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Pulling Down the Barn: Memories of a Rural Childhood (Great Lakes Books)
by Anne-Marie Oomen
Edition: Paperback
Price: $19.95

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Poetic prose essays, December 17, 2008


Anne-Marie Oomen is a poet. I haven't read her poems, but I do know she is a person of rare sensitivity with a reverence for language and the spoken word, because I have read her memoir of growing up on a farm near Hart, not far from the shores of Lake Michigan. From the very first lines of Pulling down the Barn, I could "feel" the poetry. Listen.

"She is an old hill of a woman, leaning against the sewing machine, singing softly in a language I cannot understand. Her once ample body slopes from the shoulders down, inclining into drooping breasts and folds of stomach. Her hands are as faded as late fall, her skin loose and fissured as a poor field."

In this description of her earliest memories of her dying grandmother, Oomen sets the tone for her story, a tone of wonder and awe and a firm connectedness to family and to the earth that nourishes us all. A strong religious upbringing too is entwined throughout her tale. She speaks of farming as "an unspoken religion... each crop shaping a gospel," and fields which "speak a liturgy" and "are our gods." Barns become "the cathedrals of farms."
This pantheistic thread, which could be off-putting and troublesome in the hands of a less skilled writer, works wonderfully for Oomen and serves to stitch together all of the small, exquisitely crafted essays that make up her story.

The eeriest thing for me about Oomen's memoir, however, was the absolute ease with which I could relate to nearly every small vignette of family and farm life. Have you ever heard the phrase, "We went to different schools together?" Well, that's how it felt for me as I eagerly devoured this book.

Let me try to explain. Oomen describes the sensation of the first time she had the wind knocked completely out of her after falling several feet onto the barn floor from an improvised rope swing between the haymows. She tells of the pain, the panic: "I cannot breathe. I know that I have died."

The same thing happened to me when I was about eight. Playing hide and seek with my brothers in the dark around our cabin on Indian Lake, I ran full force into the edge of our brick chimney. I still remember that fleeting feeling of panic, the inability to breathe, the sudden real fear of dying.

Another example: She tells the story of her brother's horrific winter accident on a toboggan which left him with two broken ribs and a ruptured spleen and necessitated an emergency trip to the hospital and caused untold trauma to her parents. When I was twelve, a gruesome sledding accident tore open my leg. I needed over thirty stitches and was out of commission for months.

She tells several stories about her fiercely competetive brothers, Rick and Tom, and how they were always trying to outdo each other, often engaging in the infamous "double dog dares" once ubiquitous to childhood. One of these angry confrontations left Rick with a permanent scar on his forehead. I too have a small crescent shaped scar in the same place, the result of a rock thrown carelessly by my brother.

There are too many eerily common experiences like this for me to name here - stories involving chickens, cats, and cows: haying, hunting and harvesting - but perhaps the most striking coincidence for me was that both Oomen and I "tried on" a religious vocation in the ninth grade, she at Marywood Academy, and I at St. Joseph's Seminary, both in Grand Rapids. We were, it seems, both sabotaged by the same weaknesses - homesickness and a healthy interest in the opposite sex. She was undone by guilt-wracked daydreams of Napoleon Solo, I by pubescent fantasies of Annette and erotic images of virgin martyrs. Loneliness, celibacy, and strict obedience were simply too much to ask of normal fourteen year-old kids plagued by raging hormones.

All of these examples are not meant to suggest that Oomen and I are so very much alike. In fact, I strongly suspect that the opposite is true. But her story will certainly strike a common chord in almost anyone who grew up in a small town or rural setting and her style is easily accessible.

Currently the Creative Writing Chair at Interlochen, Oomen did leave the farm, of course, but she has never forgotten it, and doesn't hesitate to recognize its importance in who she became.

"I love how these fields make me, how the weight of the farm work shapes my being, how the rich liturgy of sounds... echoes through the cells of my body even as my brain learns with equal clarity that I cannot belong here."

Pulling Down the Barn may be filed under memoirs, but its precise and beautiful prose is proof positive that Anne-Marie Oomen is, and will always be, a poet. Try reading passages aloud and you will "hear" the poetry. This is a beautiful book, a small gem of storytelling. - Tim Bazzett, author of the Reed City Boy trilogy

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Going Solo
by Roald Dahl
Edition: Paperback
Availability: Out of Print--Limited Availability
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Terriffic story-telling from a charming guy, December 17, 2008


Another writer once told me that one of the most important elements to be found in a memoir is a "likeable" narrator. Roald Dahl is perhaps one of the MOST likeable of narrators. Modest to a fault and blessed with a very sly and subtle sense of humor, the story Dahl tells in GOING SOLO, his sequel to BOY, is perhaps one of the most readable memoirs of modern times. His story of the quick and almost informal training he received at a flying school in Africa shortly after Great Britain entered WWII, is hair-raising and nearly impossible to believe, except you do believe, because you trust this man. At six foot six inches tall, Dahl was physically quite unsuited to be a fighter pilot, noting that when seated in the various planes he flew, his knees were nearly under his chin and he had to hunch over to fit beneath the plane's canopy. But fly he did, even after surviving one horrific crash in the desert early on in his career as an RAF pilot. He sustained a very bad concussion (which was to come back to haunt him and finally "invalid" him out of service nearly two years later) and had his face bashed in. As he explained to his mother in a letter: "My nose was bashed in ... and the ear nose and throat man pulled my nose out of the back of my head and shaped it and now it looks just as before except that it's a little bent about ..." Dahl went on to fly many combat missions in North Africa and Greece, usually against vastly superior odds, but somehow he managed to survive until the middle of 1941, when the migraine headaches caused by the aforementioned crash made him unfit for further flying. Dahl's nearly laconic and completely unself-conscious manner of writing about the things he did - absolutely heroic things - made me think of Sam Hynes's WWII memoir of his missions in the Pacific theater. Both writers downplay the importance of their roles. They never speak of heroics or derring-do, only about the importance of their comrades, doing the jobs they were trained to do and trying their best to simply stay alive. This was an enormously satisfying, moving and often hilarious tale. After reading these two slim volumes of memoirs by Dahl, I do wish he had written another. I have ordered his slim collection of stories about WWII already. What a wonderful writer - and gentleman - Roald Dahl was. - Tim Bazzett, author of SOLDIER BOY and LOVE, WAR & POLIO
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Boy: Tales of Childhood
by Roald Dahl
Edition: Paperback
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Delightful, dark - and thoroughly enjoyable, December 15, 2008


I have never read any of Roald Dahl's children's stories, but have always wanted to. His first memoir, BOY, is a very slight volume, less than 200 pages, but it is full of perhaps the most delightful and whimsical vignettes of childhood ever penned. While it is true there are some very shocking references to beatings and "canings" which were apparently quite common in English public schools, administered by both the masters and the older boys, the overall tone of the book is one of wonder and fond reminiscing. This is particularly true when Dahl talks of his home life, which was obviously a very loving albeit often unsupervised time, when boys could just be boys. Dahl's father, a very successful businessman, died when Roald was very young, but his mother, a Norwegian immigrant, kept her large blended family (6 children in all) very well, and stayed in Wales (then England) to raise them all, as her husband would have wanted her to. What I found most interesting in the book (although it was ALL absolutely wonderful) were the stories of young Roald's experiences at various boarding schools. These things happened back in the 20s, and yet many of these tales were so much like my own stories from one year in a Catholic seminary (a boarding school) that I was astounded. For example, when he explains "Prep," which was the same as what we called evening "study hall" at St Joe's in the late 50s.

"Every weekday evening the whole school would sit for one hour in the Main Hall, between six and seven o'clock, to do Prep. The Master on duty for the week would be in charge of Prep, which meant that he sat high up on a dais at the top end of the hall and kept order ... The rules of Prep were simple but strict. You were forbidden to look up from your work, and you were forbidden to talk ..."

This simple descriptive passage took me immediatley back to St Joe's Seminary in Grand Rapids when I was just 13 or so, and sat at my study hall desk right next to my friend Tom Cassleman. We often skirted these strict rules by raising the tops of our desks, ostensibly to get a book or pen, so we could whisper to each other or pass notes, smirking and huffing silently to each other, immensely pleased with ourselves at fooling the priest "master" up on the dais in the center of the hall. Ah, yes, Mr Dahl got it right, even though he himself was a fearful little boy of only nine in his tale, which took place in an English school over thirty years before. I could relate, as could any St Joe's student from those years in the 1950s. As for the canings, they were gone by the 50s in American schools, but we could be sent to see the dreaded Dean of Discipline, Fr Leo, if we were caught for any infractions of the rules. And I did hear rumors of a certain perhaps predatory short Monsignor who invited the smaller boys into his rooms to "counsel" them. Thankfully, since I was already over six feet tall, I never got the call. Another passage in Dahl's story which I immediately felt a kinship with was the one where he talked of the propensity of doctors and dentists in his day who never bothered with anesthetic when operating on children.

"Pain was something we were expected to endure. Anaesthetics and pain-killing injections were not much used in those days. Dentists, in particular, never bothered with them ..."

Yup, I had an old-school dentist, even in the 50s, who didn't believe in "wasting" novocaine on kids. The prevailing theory was that kids didn't really feel pain. I remember crying every time I got a filling, and I got a lot of them back in those pre-fluoride days. Dr Brown would frown and tell me to "stop being such a baby." Bastard! Once again, Dahl understood and got it right. If it isn't obvious yet, I loved this book. On to its sequel now, GOING SOLO. Watch for my review of that soon. - Tim Bazzett, author of the Reed City Boy trilogy.

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North: A Novel
by Frederick Busch
Edition: Paperback
Price: $13.95

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A talented author's last novel, December 14, 2008


NORTH is a modern tragedy. Anyone who reads it would not question this statement. But the real tragedy here is how few people have read this book, how few people knew the magic of Fred Busch's fiction. Author of more than two dozen books, Busch was often referred to as a "writer's writer," which is a kind way of saying a guy who never had a bestseller. But he should have, and NORTH, along with its excellent prequel, GIRLS, should have topped the lists. Yes, the tragic hero of GIRLS, the long-suffering one-time cop, sometime rent-a-cop, returns in NORTH. There are no giants and no beanstalks in these two Busch books, but Jack is back. And so (briefly) is "the dog," his faithful companion from GIRLS. I find it odd that a writer like Busch, who so obviously loved dogs, created a hero (anti-hero?) who had a dog with no name. I always wonder what the significance of this was. As was the case in GIRLS, Jack is again trying to "rescue" someone. And once again, so very sadly, he fails. But he does so in the most human way. For Jack is a kind of Everyman in his trying to make things better. He supposedly doesn't have the words for the tragedies that have befallen him - in his marriage and in his friendships and work. But NORTH (and GIRLS) are perhaps the most eloquent novels of sorrow, loss and near-redemption that I have ever read. Many times, hearing Jack's inner monologue in my own mind as I read, I was nearly reduced to tears. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first, of course, is Busch's consumate skill in the creation of this guy; you'll never find a more human, sympathetic character in modern fiction. The other reason I was so saddened was the knowledge that Fred Busch is no longer with us. He died in February 2006. There will be no more stories of Jack. There will be no more beautiful Busch books to look forward to. Too sad. If I had to compare Jack to other modern "investigators," the Matt Scudder character of author Lawrence Block comes to mind. Those books were a guilty pleasure for me for a few years back in the 90s. But Jack is special in his suffering, in his fortitude, in keeping his dark secrets. There is violence and cruelty here, there is love and longing, there is even torrid and brutal sex, but most of all there is Jack himself, a character to be remembered for a long long time. The ending of NORTH left an opening for another book, a sequel, but no dice. En route to Maine and a new life, Jack will remain forever on that road. I will miss him, and I will miss the art of Fred Busch even more. - Tim Bazzett, author of the Reed City Boy trilogy Comment | Permalink


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Rabbit, Run
by John Updike
Edition: Paperback
Price: $10.17

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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Rabbit stories from an old Updike fan, December 9, 2008


RABBIT, RUN was the first Updike book I read "minny minny" years ago. I found it in the college bookstore at CMU when I was looking for something else, probably something "classic" at the time, like The Rise of Silas Lapham or The Octopus or The Sound and the Fury. While I think I did read all of those books eventually, they never stayed with me like Rabbit did. I was just 23 and engaged to be married when I read - no, devoured - Rabbit, Run. What was there in me back then, I wonder, that drew me to dark tales about other people's messy lives and misery? I dunno, but for some reason I loved the story of hapless Harry Angstrom, who, like a small fearful animal, "lived inside his skin." Was that a quote from the book? Maybe, it seems familiar anyway. I have read probably a dozen or more other Updike books since 1967 - certainly not all of his stuff, but enough. All four Rabbit books, of course, but I also loved Of the Farm and The Poorhouse Fair and The Witches of Eastwick. And I did a senior paper on COUPLES, a book which was thought to be quite scandalous at the time, what with all its combinations of multiple couplings, bed-hopping (and laundry pile) adultery, and a seeming obsession with oral sex. The paper I wrote was pretty awful, as I remember, but at least it gave me a valid excuse to read what was then Updike's newest offering without feeling too guilty. RABBIT, RUN became required reading in most of the English classes I taught in the early 70s. I found that many of my students didn't share my enthusiasm for Updike or his Harry creation though. I remember one male student once remarking, "Mr Bazzett, ya know how there are some books that once you pick 'em up, ya just don't wanna put 'em down? Well, this Updike book, it's like once I put it down, I didn't wanna pick it up again."

Well, I guess I understood his point of view, but I was a little hurt just the same that he didn't like one of my favorite books. And back then I was probably a little too much into exploring the "symbolism" of Updike's character names too. Eccles (Ecclesiates), Harry (a hare?), Angstrom (a tiny insignificant unit of measurement, or perhaps a "stream of angst"), Ruth ("whither thou goest - NOT!), Coach Tothero (t'other one), Mt Judge (self-explanatory), and on and on until my students probably just wanted to puke. I got out of teaching after five years, which was probably a good thing. I think I was one of those guys who ended up teaching English just because I loved literature and reading - which does NOT automatically make a good teacher. I don't cerebralize (is that a word?) the books I read much anymore. I just enjoy them. I re-read RABBIT,RUN again recently, after more than twenty years. It holds up well. It's still dark, tortured and an interesting look at the "human condition." But you know what? I don't like that kind of book so much anymore. I'd rather read a good love story, or maybe a memoir. At 65, maybe too much estrogen and not enough testosterone? Harry Angstrom is still a guy all serious students of American Lit should know though. And if you're a relatively new Lit student, here's something you might have missed. RABBIT,RUN was made into a pretty decent (if largely ignored) film around 40 years ago, with James Caan as Harry. If you haven't seen it, it's worth the rental price. Sadly, Updike finally put Rabbit to rest some years back (RABBIT AT REST) in the fourth book of the tetralogy. Personally, I think he shoulda kept him around a while. I'd like to know how he woulda been as a randy ol' septuagenarian. But that's probably just me. R.I.P., Harry. And many thanks to his master craftsman creator, John Updike. Write on, Mr. U! - Tim Bazzett, author of the REED CITY BOY trilogy and LOVE, WAR & POLIO Comment (1) | Permalink | Most recent comment: Jan 26, 2009 6:45 AM PST


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Doing Battle: The Making of a Skeptic
by Paul Fussell
Edition: Paperback
Price: $16.19

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Self-effacing, funny & profound, December 9, 2008


I read DOING BATTLE over a year ago while doing research for a WWII era biography I was writing. I was looking for memoirs of wartime that would reflect the times. Fussell's book did that and more. He wrote of his early life in California and college in Pomona, then of his military experience, including the serious wounds he received as a twenty year-old infantry lieutenant. And then of his recovery in military hospitals where "in my loneliness I enacted a version of Frederic Henry's obsession with Catherine Barkley. I fell in love with a nurse ..." This went nowhere, as Fussell never even learned her name. He also talked of his distaste for another junior officer's task, that of censoring the letters of his men. He realized intuitively how insulting it was to the enlisted men, many of whom were years older than he. His account of the circumstances of his own injuries are matter-of-fact. An incoming German shell exploded right above Fussell and two other GIs.

"Its intolerably loud metallic CLANG! did more than deafen me. It sent red-hot metal tearing into my body. One piece went into my right thigh. Another entered my back. When I got my hearing and my senses back, the first thing I did was take a deep breath to see if my lung had been penetrated. When I found it had not, I felt less panicky and, despite the indescribable pain, able to look about me."

The two men flanking Fussell when the shell burst were both killed, a quirky coincidence he never forgot. Besides his account of the war, Fussell continues his story through grad school at Harvard and several teaching jobs thereafter. Given my own military experiences and subsequent return to college and grad school, I found it all most interesting, including the academic intrigue and competition. Paul Fussell has examined his life carefully, and despite numerous books published and other prestigious accomplishments, he still manages to take himself with a grain of salt. His style reminds me just a bit of Andy Rooney, that old 60 Minutes guy, who, incidentally, wrote his own fine WWII memoir, MY WAR (see my review of that). Just last year, Fussell was one of the featured principals, along with his friend Sam Hynes, interviewed extensively by Ken Burns for his PBS documentary, THE WAR. Fussell has been "doing battle" in one important cause or another his whole life, for which I salute him. I enjoyed his book tremendously and recommend it highly. - Tim Bazzett, author of LOVE, WAR & POLIO Comment | Permalink


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Aleutian Echoes (Lanternlight Library)
by Charles Bradley
Edition: Hardcover
Price: $19.00

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A visually beautiful book and a good read, December 8, 2008


Writing a review of Aleutian Echoes feels a bit futile, because I very much doubt if many folks will ever read it. There has to be some reason to read about something as obscure as the North Pacific Combat School which operated for a year and a half on Unalaska and Adak in the Aleutians and processed/trained less than 300 men during its short tenure in 1944-45. Well, my own convoluted reason for being interested is that I "almost" got sent to the Aleutians back in the early 60s. I was one of ten army Morse code intercept operators given special training at Ft Meade, MD, in the summer of 1963. Five were assigned to Sinop (Turkey) and five to the Aleutian atoll of Shemya. I drew Sinop, but five of my buddies from the past several months of training at Ft Devens and Meade, headed NW to the Aleutians. In my own memoir, SOLDIER BOY, I have documented my own adventures in Sinop, but I have always wondered what an Aleutian assignment would have been like. Charles Bradley's beautifully rendered memoir of his WWII years there have answered many of my unasked questions. Unalaska and Adak sound like pretty unforgiving and harsh places, but Bradley's intense interest in the flora and fauna, the climate and terrain, the extreme weather conditions, etc. all make for a very interesting book, and his beautiful photographs, water colors and pencil sketches of the area are tremendous "extras." It helps, I think, that Bradley was older than the average WWII recruit, in his early 30s, so his story is a bit more mature and thoughtful than my own recorded experiences from 20 years later in northern Turkey. His stories of training on the slopes and summits of the volcanic peaks are, by turns, scary and comical. And I was especially moved by his description of the breaking up of the unit after VJ-Day -

"We packed our gear and waited our turns for transportation home. NPCS broke up, one or two chunks at a time. There was lots of pounding shoulders, waving, yelling insults, and good wishes. Also there were unseen lumps in the throats and awareness of an unforgettable adventure ending."

This passage brought to mind partings of my own from close army buddies of 2-3 years, and the (unkept) promises to keep in touch. Lumps in the throats indeed. Friendships forged in the military are the strongest ones you ever make, no question, and are never repeated in later life. Charles Bradley is gone now, and I am very sad that I can't write or call him and tell him personally how much I enjoyed his story and thank him for his service. Godspeed, Charley, wherever you are. - Tim Bazzett, author of SOLDIER BOY: AT PLAY IN THE ASA and LOVE, WAR & POLIO Comment | Permalink


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Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back
by Frank Schaeffer
Edition: Paperback
Price: $12.48

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Informative and blazingly honest - good writing! I learned of this book from a commentary (favorable!) on it by Charles Honey, the religion editor of the Grand Rapids Press, the staunchly Republican newspaper of west Michigan. In CRAZY FOR GOD Schaeffer lays bare his own role and that of his evangelical proselytizing parents in polarizing the country on the issue of abortion back in the 70s, 80s and beyond. The religious right does not fare well in this book, particularly in the latter part, as young "Franky" Schaeffer becomes increasingly disillusioned with his life, in spite of the fame and fortune he has reaped. But it wasn't that part of Schaeffer's story that charmed me so much as it was the frank and honest way he told of his early life, stricken by polio at two, growing up in Switzerland on a religious commune of sorts, and his trials as a dyslexic both in his home-schooled experience and then in English boarding schools. This was, of course, in a time when dyslexia hadn't quite been recognized. It brought to mind a friend of my own boys back in the 80s whose school performance was always atrocious and he was constantly being berated by his father for his "stupidity and laziness." It wasn't until Johnny - a really bright kid, and young man - got to college that he was finally evaluated and diagnosed as a dyslexic. Frank Schaeffer was like that. An incredibly bright and inquisitive child, he became successful in spite of his disadvantages. Although Franky, that "little sh-- from Switzerland," eventually defected from the family camp to make his own way in America as an author and would-be filmmaker, he remained loyal to his parents and never stopped loving them and being grateful to them. He also gives much - and probably well-deserved - credit, not only to his conversion to Greek Orthodoxy, but to the constant support and understanding of his wife of nearly 40 years, Genie. They married as mere teenagers, so I give them a lot of credit too. How much did I really like this book? Well enough to have also ordered and read Schaeffer's most recent novel, BABY JACK (see my review here on Amazon), an important book I enjoyed tremendously, perhaps even more than this memoir. And I will probably also order Frank's Calvin Becker fictional trilogy soon. Because of writers like Schaeffer, I continue to nearly despair of ever having the time to read everything - so many GOOD books out there, so little time. ( )

The subtitle for this in-depth look at the life of theologian and Christian apologist Francis A. Schaeffer’s son is How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back.Those familiar with the Schaeffers will also probably be familiar with some of Frank’s evangelical works which include Addicted to Mediocrity; A Time for Anger; amongst others, as well as the film presentations How Should We Then Live, and Whatever Happened to the Human Race. However, he is also the author of The Calvin Becker Trilogy (Portofino, Zermatt, and Saving Grandma) and Baby Jack, as well as the non-fiction works, Keeping Faith; Faith of Our Sons; and Voices from the Front.

As may be discerned when one reads this book, in many respects, Frank is still an “angry young man”, although this time, his anger seems more directed towards himself than at anyone else in particular. This moving memoir takes the reader behind the scenes, so to speak, of the author’s life with his parents and siblings, friends, co-workers, wife and children, and reveals much more than what the reader might expect. That is to say, in “real life”, the Schaeffers, like many other Christian “icons” and Frank isn’t afraid to name some of them--were and are just as human as the rest of us, some of them with even greater foibles than we might want to believe.

Frank presents the memoir in four sections: Childhood, Education, Turmoil, and Peace. Although focusing on his own emotional and psychological tribulations, he manages to help the reader understand how people and experiences helped shape who he first became, and why he gradually distanced himself from the evangelical movement, turning instead, to Greek Orthodoxy.

Frank is remarkably transparent throughout this book, sharing how more and more alienated he felt in spite of the fact that he and his father were popular evangelical authors and speakers, particularly to fundamentalist churches and organizations crying out to them that they needed to “take back America”. Further, Frank describes his vacillating life as a rebellious young man, a filmmaker and a father, and his eventual journey back to a new prominence as a writer.

The book ends on a poignant note: “maybe there is a God who forgives, who loves, who knows. I hope so. Anything is possible in world where a daughter forgives her father, for ignorance, for anger, for failure, and places her daughter in his arms.” For those interested in a different perspective on Francis and Edith Schaeffer, l'Abri, and the fundamentalist right-wing evangelical movement, as well as the touching story of someone deeply involved in it all, this is a must-read.

First Reviewed for TCM Reviews ( )

Very interesting read. Having grown up somewhat familiar with the names and ideals he was talking about it was eye opening to hear his side of the story. Gave me a lot to think about.
A few times, he tends to rant and get off topic, but he still is able to tie up all the various strings he starts. ( )

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/... ( )