After posting nearly 90 reviews on this current site (and more than 100 elsewhere) I’m taking an extended break from reviews. As a result, this page will not be updated for some time. After extensive research, I’ve determined that the world will actually continue to exist if I don’t post anything, so I rest easy knowing this decision will not contribute to the end of the world.
Author: Candice Millard
Publisher: Doubleday
Publication Date: 2011
I’ve learned to be wary of books with long, alliterative subtitles as they seem desperate to pull the book buyer in. But if you are writing about the short presidency of James Garfield and the clearly mentally disturbed man who killed him, you do need to make people think it is worthwhile.
Fortunately, my subtitle hesitancy was unwarranted here as Candice Millard writes a thoroughly captivating book that places this “minor” event in the context of the times, showing how this tragedy pulled together a country still divided after the Civil War.
Garfield is a fascinating person, but since he served only a little over six months as president and two of those he was dying due to being shot, he is not one we know well. But he does leave us thinking, what if?
Garfield was a Republican who opposed slavery throughout his life, rose from poverty and worked his way through college, became a Union general due to his valor, and then reluctantly left teaching at a college to become a member of the House. Not only did he not seek the nomination for president, but he nominated someone else! Once nominated, as many candidates at that time he did no self-promotion (oh, don’t we all long for those days). And yet, he was elected, and in his very short time as president, he tore down the “spoils system” network that determined political appointments.
This book is not a biography of Garfield, but Millard gives enough of his story so we understand who Garfield was as a person. She does the same with his assassin, Charles Guiteau, a man who was delusional about much of life. He was convinced he helped Garfield get elected and wanted to be rewarded by becoming the ambassador to France, but Garfield did not offer him the post. Nor would anyone offer him anything since Guiteau had not succeeded in anything in life. While technically a lawyer, this was a time when you could practice law without a college degree, and Guiteau did not have one. He spent five years in a religious utopian group that practiced “group marriage,” but the women nicked named him “Gitout” because they never wanted him to share their bed with him! Every scheme he had for making money failed and his greatest skill seemed to be skipping out on lodging bills.
Family members tried to have him committed and White House officials clearly saw he was not sane, but at that time, presidents had no bodyguards. Garfield often walked around on his own to visit colleagues. Guiteau, believing God wanted him to “remove” Garfield and that the country would then thank him, followed Garfield for weeks before finally shooting him in the back at a railway station.
This begins to cover the madness and murder part of Millard’s subtitle, but not completely. While Guiteau succeeded in shooting Garfield, he did not kill him. As other doctors at the time would argue, his autopsy later showed, and history has confirmed, it was his medical care that killed him. Left alone, the bullet left in his body was not a threat and he would have recovered.
Despite the efforts of Joseph Lister, expertly laid out in Lindsey Fitszharris’ The Butchering Art, many American doctors were still not convinced of the need for sterilizing wounds and instruments. Dr. Willard Bliss, sensing a chance to build his fame, wrestled control of the care of Garfield, excluding all but two doctors who had to follow his direction. Bliss thought Lister’s ideas were ridiculous and did not hesitate to examine the wound with unwashed fingers and then do just about everything you should do if you want to ensure infection. He didn’t even determine the path of the bullet correctly, although he was told by another doctor where it likely was. Garfield suffered greatly for over two months, dying in pain. The autopsy confirmed that the bullet did not kill him — poor medical care killed the President.
Millard’s only misstep is her focus on Alexander Graham Bell’s unsuccessful attempt to locate the bullet in the president by using a device he created (similar to a metal detector) after hearing about the assassination attempt. He probably would have succeeded, but Bliss would only let him use the device where Bliss thought the bullet was located and not where it was. While interesting, she spends a few chapters on Bell that are not needed for his small role in the story.
Not surprisingly, the cause of Garfield’s death did not save Guiteau from hanging. However, what was surprising was how the shooting of Garfield unified a divided country. Even Jefferson Davis, the former president of the Confederacy, said the assassination attempt made “the whole Nation kin.” Garfield’s long support of the abolition of slavery and full rights for black men was seen in the outpouring of support from the black community. A country that was still divided over the Civil War found a common cause to rally around as even the South supported Garfield.
Millard rightly does not spend time on the “what if” scenario had Garfield survived, but he was clearly someone of strong moral values who was willing to fight for what was right. Who knows how our country would have shifted had he survived.
Millard has created an altogether well-written book that reconstructs a time when progress in politics, mental health, and medicine were on the cusp of change and she shows us the struggles those changes created.
Author: John Hilla
Publisher: MersinBeat
Publication Date: 2021
Can you still call yourself a punk rocker when you live in the suburbs with your wife, who is an attorney? As you fully embrace middle age can you maintain your youthful ideologies or do you have to sacrifice them to survive?
In John Hilla’s debut novel, Stay Free, he addresses the philosophical questions of idealism, realism, and existentialism with a small cast of characters. But throw in an FBI manhunt, a struggling marriage, and the realities of everyday life and you have an interesting story to lead you through the questions.
Ivan is an out-of-work professional librarian living near Detroit who is also obsessed with the historical drama of a little-known leader in the Russian Revolution. Ivan’s marriage with Karen is in danger and he seems incapable of stopping her as she drifts away. Just when it seems life cannot get worse, Ivan’s long-time friend, and the nemesis of Karen, appears back in his life. Unfortunately, the FBI also shows up.
Hugo, Ivan’s childhood friend, is still living out their punk rock ideology. He is also wanted by the FBI who interview Karen and Ivan, which only drives a deeper wedge between the couple. Ivan is pulled between his life in the past and the life he wants in the future, but he lacks the ability to make a decision. The inescapable existentialist motif of “not to choose is to choose” is embodied in Ivan, who continues to allow life to make decisions for him.
Ivan examines his own life by reflecting on Alexander Anosov, a little-known Russian revolution leader. Their stories appear to have little in common, but as we learn more about Anosov we can see where our heroes fail and where we may succeed.
Forced to finally act, Ivan refuses to give up on Hugo, housing him and his unstable girlfriend in his basement. Hugo never hesitates to remind Ivan that his life in the suburbs dependent on his lawyer wife is everything they would have hated. But as Ivan sees Hugo living out his life in the basement and on the run, he begins to question how far youthful ideology can carry someone. Forced to reexamine his own situation, even Hugo starts to wonder about his choices in life.
As the story comes to a climax, many of Ivan’s choices come together violently. In the end, Ivan knows the direction he wants to go and we hope he gets the chance to pursue it. Stay Free is a literary and philosophical story of how we address the dreams of our youth as we age.
This review was first published on Reedsy Discovery.
Author: Krista Lukas
Publisher: The Black River Press (Rainshadow Editions)
Publication Date: 2013
Poems can arrive to you in a variety of ways and like a good sign, they can lead you down the right path. I first read Krista Lukas’ poem “The Day I Die” when it appeared on The Writer’s Almanac. It has become one of my all-time favorite poems and I wrote a little bit about it in my grief blog. After reading her volume, Fans of My Unconscious, it is clear that Lukas has the gift of making us reexamine our lives not through the exceptional times, but in our day in and day out existence.
Lukas’ work allows our existence to take on emotional meaning in the most unexpected places. In the poem “What’s Your Favorite Animal” we are thrown into a car weighted with silence that her mother-in-law attempts to break through with the question of the title. It is a scene many of us have experienced. “On our way to dinner, hardly any traffic/Rain spatters the windshield,/the wipers squeak, everyone is hungry./In the darkness outside, our reflections/are grave, waiting for the answer”. The poem foreshadows several other poems where Lukas explores her divorce with both humor and angst. Here, the simple act of going to dinner is recast as the rain comes down, “the wipers squeak” and the reflections of the passengers are “grave, waiting for the answer.” Lukas presents such depth so simply, it is easy to read past it. But her words are worth a slow read.
It is her ability to not only observe these everyday moments but also see the depth these experiences convey, the stories they tell, that make her poetry sound both familiar and new. We hear what we already know but see it with a new perspective. Thus the power of her simple poem, “The Day I Die” in which she says that “The day I die will be a certain/day, a square on a calendar page/to be flipped up and pinned/at the end of the month. It may be August/or November, school will be out or in;/somebody will have to catch a plane.”
This poem hit me personally because my youngest son, Oliver, died from cancer at the age of six. He died on a Tuesday. It was in the midst of Tulip Time, a very large celebration in my town and I was on the festival’s board. My son was dead, but the next day was the first of three parades. That such a life-defining day for me was just another day in a week of festivals for someone else struck me at the time. Lukas captures that strangeness, the unique clashing of the ordinary and the extraordinary, in this poem.
Lukas avoids overburdening the reader, as many poets do, by also displaying the ability to laugh at experiences, herself, and all of us. As a stamp collector, I’m especially drawn to her consideration of the postal service’s confidence in creating a “Forever Stamp.” She laughs at our hubris which creates a stamp that will be “Good through the depletion/of fossil fuels, the rise of oceans/the desert’s expansion, the disappearance/of the atmosphere as we know it.” And while humorous, the poem works as a reminder that nothing, including us, is forever.
It is the task of the poet to make us look at the world anew. Lukas does this by addressing the everyday parts of life in which we can find poetry. As such, we find in her writing not just great poems, but a call to look for the poetic in life. When poets push us toward the poetic, they create work that is to be read and reread.
You can find out more about Lukas by visiting her website.
Author: John Carey
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publication Date: 2020
It is an audacious and ultimately futile attempt to write a history of poetry, let alone a “little one.” Any sweeping view is bound to miss some writers, promote others who are temporarily in style, and make everyone dissatisfied.
And yet, such an attempt is hard to resist and the highly respected scholar John Carey is well placed for the challenge. “A Little History of Poetry” is straightforward in its concept, although Carey has enough life in his writing to entice many readers to seek out new writers. In 40 chapters he takes us from “The Epic of Gilgamesh” to Mary Oliver. While some writers are worthy of individual chapters (Chaucer, Donne, Milton, and Yeats), most are put together in headings such as “An Age of Individualism” (Jonson, Herrick, and Marvell) or “Poetry of the First World War.”
Along with Carey’s strong voice we not only find excellent summaries of some great poems, he also includes generous samplings of the poems so you can get a feel for the poet’s voices. Critics can pick at his choices and all of us can find faults. One of my poetic heroes, John Clare, at least gets mentioned but is called an imitator (!), and somehow Carey misses the recently deceased poet, Galway Kinnell, whose wide range of poetry far outweighs other entries.
But he is playing to a general audience so Sylvia Plath gets a bit of attention although he is a critic who finds her life more interesting than her poetry (I agree). Even his inclusion of Mary Oliver at the end comes under “Poets Who Cross Boundaries” in that Oliver crossed the boundary into being popular! Amanda Gorman can expect the rest of her work to find fans and detractors simply because she made poetry something worthy of the Super Bowl (and, of course, a Presidential Inauguration).
While we can overlook our petty squabbles about who is included and who is not, this book’s major failing is its title. It is not a history of poetry, but a history of Western poetry. Carey mentions one early Iranian poet, Hafez, completely missing the entire long and rich world of Persian poetry. His only entries on Japanese and Chinese poetry are listed under the work of the English translators instead of the poets themselves, missing another rich tradition.
In reality this is a “Little History of Poetry in the U.K, the U.S. and a few European Countries.” Okay, Chile and Mexico get a quick mention because Neurda and Paz are hard to ignore. While that title will not sell as many books, it is important to understand the geographical limitations of the book. If you understand the limitations of the selection, the book is worth reading and a good resource as you seek new writers to read.
Author: Max Parker
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2021
Mix in opium, deadly work conditions, a corrupt company, an emerging police force in London, and one woman who does not even consider the roles existing for her in the 19th century, and you have a recipe for excitement. In Max Parker’s Masking the Truth, that recipe creates a delicious blend of mystery and adventure.
The story revolves around Scarlett Pembridge, a member of the independent policing agency, the Bow Street Runners, and Andrew Green, a veteran in the legal opium trade who works for the East India Company. Pembridge has a reputation for bringing in a lot of criminals, usually dead, and Green has returned from several years in China to serve as a consultant with the emerging Scotland Yard.
They find their paths crossing as they seek out the Matchstick Mangler, a vicious killer who tortures victims and leaves their eyes pried open with matchsticks. The question is if this ties in with a mysterious illness some workers at the matchstick factory suffer from, or with opium disappearing into a London that is struggling with an increase in the damage that opium brings to its users.
Although Green works with the police, he is actually employed by the East India Company, a once reputable force in England but one that Green is starting to question. When he realizes that Scarlett’s father, who runs the Bow Street Runners, used to be an East India agent, the questions only get deeper.
When Scarlett and Green cross paths, it rarely goes well. While not opposed to violence, Green prefers a more subtle approach than Scarlett, who often ends up in a fight. Most of her opponents usually underestimate her because of her gender, but her tall height and training from her father give her an advantage. Still, both Green and Scarlett have their blindspots and they are not superheroes, making them realistic and approachable protagonists.
As Green’s work with police and the opium trade crosses paths with Scarlett’s search for the Matchstick Mangler, they find the need to work together. No good reviewer ever reveals the ending of a mystery, so suffice it to say that Parker leads us to a surprising and exciting end of the story.
Fans of fast-moving mysteries with a dose of fighting and dying will enjoy this novel. Parker has created two strong characters whom we hope to see in future adventures.
This review was first published on Reedsy.
Author: Maurice Walsh (1879-1964)
Publisher: Appletree Press
Publication Date: 1935
There is nothing like the surprise of discovering a great book you originally approached with less than heightened expectations. A Christmas gift from my (admittedly very long) book list was a collection of stories by Maurice Walsh entitled “The Quiet Man.” Fellow fans of classic films will recognize the title of the wonderful film set in Ireland starring Maureen O’Hara and John Wayne. I’ve seen the film more times than I can count and was curious about the story that gave birth to it.
This collection is clearly meant to take advantage of the movie’s success as the cover features Wayne and versatile character actor, Victor McLaglen in a scene from the movie. Outside of this story, I’ve never heard of Walsh and thought he might have just hit it big with one story. Instead, the five stories in the collection feature intertwined characters and riveting stories of an Ireland in the midst of a bloody revolution as it seeks to throw off British rule after WWI.
His characters, including “the quiet man” are first centered around the battle for freedom and then life after the truce. But these are not war stories; they are stories of relationships in which a wife turns over a husband who is a traitor, prisoners are treated as guests, and friendships found on opposite sides of the guns are still friendships. And love grows in the midst of all this chaos. In the opening story, “Then Came the Captain’s Daughter” we meet most of the characters, including Owen Jordan, a bitter American-Irish doctor who has come to fight for Irish freedom. But when one of the captives is a strong-spirited daughter of the enemy, he begins to see hope in life. “Over the Border” looks at love lost because of the war as one-man emerges scarred and distant. The border is the boundary between his land and the land of the family’s whose daughter he loves and lost. It is a story of the dangers of pride and the need for forgiveness. Other stories also show people rebuilding their lives after the war and finding hope after despair.
As for “The Quiet Man,” I will not provide a contrast/comparison between the story and the book. It does revolve around a boxer, although in the story, Paddy Brawn Enright, is a small ex-boxer who returns to Ireland and joins the battle for independence. He is called “the quiet man” as he seeks nothing more in life than “a quiet place to live.” The movie steals elements from some of the other stories and Maureen O’Hara’s character is a combination of several strong women featured in the book. While the movie does not follow the story exactly, it certainly honors the spirit of Walsh’s writing although the IRA element is played down in the film.
Walsh is not much appreciated today, but was a best-selling author in Ireland during the 1930s and 40s and wrote over 20 novels and many short stories. (Note: There is a contemporary writer with the same name who writes on Irish history). Legendary Irish writer Seamus Heaney praised Walsh’s style which created “an atmosphere, a sense of bogs and woods.” Much of the action takes place in the country and the art of fishing is central to the stories, an almost sacred ritual.
While many of his works are now out of print, he is worth seeking out. There is a musical based on his book, Castle Gillian, currently in development so perhaps we’ll find a renewed interest in this writer. I hope so.
Author: Gojan Nikolich
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Publication Date: 2020
Gophers who dress in classic rock shirts while waging war, wildfires set by an arsonist on the loose, a woman found murdered by the river, a golf course development threatening to take over a rural town, and a Vietnam veteran who takes his medicine by color scheme. Gojan Nikolich’s The Gopher King: A Dark Comedy could have been a disaster, but instead is both a hilarious and insightful look at how we come to grips with grief and regret in a constantly changing world.
Stan Przewalski, the narrator, is a vet who is not only suffering PTSD from his war experiences but is also mourning the death of his wife. He makes his living publishing a weekly newspaper with over-the-top headlines, but his life takes a turn after a three-day sightseeing tour of Vietnam. As his repressed guilt over an incident during the war takes over, he finds a new comrade with Chaz, a gopher with the ability to shrink items and people down to his size.
Chaz is running a full-scale army thanks to all their stolen weapons and he is trying to stop a real estate developer from taking over their area. Stan is given insight into the gopher world and even helps them as they turn their gold (they are good diggers!) into Bitcoins. While they can be effective warriors, they also don’t always realize their miniaturized military weapons lack much of a punch, leading to hilarious scenes. This bit of magic realism allows the reader to see their narrator in a new light. We can question whether he has completely lost his handle on life or if he is finding a way to address it.
It is through this blending of Stan’s daily life, his interactions with the gophers, and unexpected flashbacks to Vietnam that Nikolich creates a unique look into the struggle of a veteran with PTSD. It is through his work with the gophers and the wildfire that Stan is finally able to redeem himself in his own eyes for what happened in Vietnam.
Nikolich has created a wild ride that moves quickly and expertly through several plot lines, all of which find a connection in the end.
First published on Reedsy.
Authors: Norman and Lynn Reed
Publisher: Principia Media
Publication Date: 2014
A good book can be found anywhere. As I was wandering a small line of shops set up on folding tables in a parking lot, I was drawn to the only book on display. I soon found myself in conversation with Norman Reed, one of the authors of The Black Angel of the Lord. While interested, I try (really, I try) not to buy every book that sounds interesting. I held off, but as my wife and I visited the other shops my mind kept returning to the interesting premise of the novel. Not surprisingly, I left the shops with the book signed by both of the authors in hand. It was a good decision.
The Reeds (a wife/husband team) conflate two different sections of the Old Testament, throw in a third storyline, and create a fascinating historical novel. In Second Kings, chapter 35, we get the story of the Assyrian army on the doorstep of Jerusalem. In the Old Testament of Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faiths, we find the Book of Judith (Protestestants will put it in their apocrypha) which tells of a great Hebrew heroine. Although the two stories are not connected in the Bible, the Reeds use both stories to create a dynamic storyline. The Assyrian army is no longer a faceless enemy, but a well-trained group of soldiers led by a King and General that we see grow up together. The Reeds take us beyond the soldiers and create people that we can relate to because of their faults and successes.
While we watch both of these storylines unfold, a third storyline follows the story of Ramtouses, a young man who gains fame as a lion killer in the small villages of Africa. When told that the woman he loves is killed by devils (the Assyrians), he works with two Egyptian warriors to create a great African army that seeks revenge on the Assyrians. A truly fascinating character, Ramtouses struggles with seeking to be in his home while also wanting to see the world. Like Judith, but unlike the Assyrians, Ramtouses is a self-aware person who acknowledges his failings and seeks to make life better for himself and others. He is a servant leader who both learns and leads. After many months of training his army with unusual tactics, including learning to fight in the darkness of night, he leads his troops on the long trek to Jerusalem where the mighty Assyrian army is encamped and waiting to destroy the city.
Judith is the most surprising of the characters, as she probably was to the people of her time (there is debate about whether such a person existed, but even the story of her at that time would have been shocking). She exists in a patriarchal society but breaks those barriers to become an elder because of her commitment to God. She challenges her king and her society to greater faith, to which they respond. In the end, she is willing to risk her life to save her people. Because of her uniqueness, she has been a favorite subject of painters for centuries.
Without wanting to give away too much of the plot, the stories of Judith, II Kings, and Ramtouses all combine to create a climactic ending to the book. It is a story full of human love, faith, revenge, jealousy, trust, deceit, and honor. In other words, names from scripture become living people with all the faults and hopes that we all share. Even those who know these stories from the Bible will be surprised at how well the different stories overlap and work together. By creating this story the Reeds have found a way to bring the ancient stories to life for modern readers.
Author: Todd Billings
Publisher: Brazos Press
Publication Date: 2020
There is an ancient Christian tradition known as memento mori, “remember your death,” which means we live our lives with our death in front of us. It is a way to refocus our energy on living a full life while we have it. It predates but connects with ars moriendi, the “art of dying” which begins with 15th-century texts that examine Christian death and the afterlife in an effort to allow us to “die well.”
Todd Billings most recent book, The End of the Christian Life: How Embracing our Mortality Frees Us to Truly Live, builds on this tradition in a work that will appeal to the layperson as well as the theologian. For Billings, dying well is not an abstract exercise. He is dying from multiple myeloma, an incurable cancer. Diagnosed at the age of 39, Billings lives with the knowledge that he is unlikely to see his two children graduate from high school. The constant pain of his cancer reminds him of his mortality even as he continues to be a father, husband, neighbor, church member, and friend.
A highly regarded theologian, Billings first wrote movingly about his diagnosis and life with cancer in Rejoicing in Lament: Wrestling With Incurable Cancer And Life In Christ in 2015. Now we see a person who has lived with this diagnosis for five years and “In my own journey of treatment and getting to know others in the cancer community, I’ve realized that the process of embracing my mortality is a God-given means for discipleship and witness in the world. As strange as it seems, coming to terms with our limits as dying creatures is a life-giving path” (p. 4).
Billings takes us through the different ways Christians either struggle or embrace the concept of death. He examines the afterlife, how medicine impacts our view of death, how we avoid the concept of death, and an especially intriguing chapter on how “prosperity gospel” theology impacts our view of evil our ideas about death. It is our views on death that Billings focuses on since death is a fact; how we come to grips with our death is another story.
As a solid Protestant theologian, Billings’ thinking is always grounded in scripture. He does not shy away from the fact that the Judeo-Christian view of death and the afterlife have evolved and changed over the centuries. His exploration of “Sheol” in the Old Testament challenges the popular understanding of it as a shadowy afterlife. In Psalm 107 he shows us that “then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,/and he saved them from their distress;/he sent out his word and healed them,/and delivered them from destruction [Sheol].” Billings cites several examples that show Sheol is for the living and the dead. It is for those who are cut off from God and they cry out to be rescued.
In doing so, Billings shows that scripture does not separate biological life and death as much being in God’s presence or absent from God’s presence. Sheol becomes a fluid “place” where those who suffer, in life or death, find God absent from their lives. Billings acknowledges that his more privileged background has allowed him to escape much of this suffering. Still, “Each person’s suffering has its own character…and a brush with death can transport any of us to Sheol in short order” (p.18). We have been preceded in this suffering by Christ, who calls out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” Christ felt this abandonment, but then “The life-giving presence of God descended to the deep pit of Sheol” (p. 19). God reaches across the chasm to those who feel lost and abandoned.
Billings also examines how our society handles death. Funerals, like weddings, have become separated from worship services and turned into personalized events. “The older pattern was to bring the coffin, and thus the body of the deceased, to a congregational worship service centered on the death and resurrection” (p. 82) Now, many people have “celebrations of life” with no body present, lest it dampens people’s spirits. “Stated differently, all too often the church swaps a Christ-centered funeral liturgy for a sugarcoated ‘personal memorial service’ to accommodate a death-denying culture” (p. 82). Billings sees this as dangerous for Christians as it allows us to avoid our need of God for deliverance.
You are mortal. You are not indispensable to the world. Your life will come to an end.
Todd Billings
Billings is willing to challenge us and our culture in how we approach death. He refuses to slip into false platitudes and points out that the “heavenly family reunion” we often talk about when someone dies has no biblical basis. We simply don’t know what life after death is going to be like (and he has great review of near-death experience literature in here), but what we do know does not imply that our departed loved ones are waiting for us the moment we die. Billings is not trying to be unsympathetic, but as a theologian, he recognizes the limits of our human understanding.
What Billings provides us with in this book is a call for Christians to rethink how they approach their death. The first part of that is stop denying death and then to consider how we live our lives with the acknowledgment of our death. Any of us may die today without expecting it. Billings could as well, but unlike many of us he knows his death will come sooner than he desires. We can be thankful that he has the faith and the courage to share with us how that knowledge of death can shape our lives.
Disclaimer: This is from an advance review copy so the page numbers may change. In addition, I know Todd Billings and in the book, he refers to my youngest son, Oliver, who died from cancer. Nevertheless, this is an honest review of another great book by Billings. If I didn’t like it, I just wouldn’t say anything!
Author: Bruce Triggs
Publisher: Demian and Sons
Publication Date: 2019
“I’m an accordion fan.” It sounds like the first step in a 12-step program, but I’m not only an accordion fan, I’m quite happy with the claim. In my “real” life some of my work includes presenting artists in a cultural arts series, and thanks to a few groups that snuck in with accordions, I became a fan. Perhaps I was tainted by watching the Lawrence Welk show too often when my grandmother was babysitting me, so for years I had a limited version of what the accordion can do. In the years since, I’ve heard Russian, French, Canadian, Eastern European, U.S., and Irish accordion players live and my world has opened to the range of ways the accordion can add to the musical landscape.
I’ve also discovered and enjoyed Rowan Lipkovits and Bruce Triggs’ Accordion Noir radioshow to keep expanding my knowledge. It is no surprise that Triggs’ Accordion Revolution: A People’s History of the Accordion From the Industrial Revolution to Rock and Roll is packed full of history, stories, and enough accordion information to keep you returning to the book over and over. While it is a history, it will also serve as a great encyclopedia of the instrument that will be a valuable source for music historians and accordion fans.
Personally, I land firmly in the “fan” area as I do not even own an accordion nor do I know how to play one. I mean, I would like to get one and learn, but in the meantime, I’m the non-musician following one of his favorite instruments. Triggs writes in a way that is easy for the non-musician to follow, but those who want to get into details of the instruments or some subtleties of the music that only musicians can appreciate, will not be disappointed. He even gets into the areas of how different genres are defined, what instruments are truly traditional, and how racism and nationalism have played a part in keeping some traditions out of the mainstream.
As a blues fan, his explanation of why the accordion has had a hard time breaking into the genre since it cannot bend notes or play a blues scale was helpful. Meanwhile, the accordion’s historical counterpart, the harmonica, has flourished in the blues. Folk fans will find an extended section and one that is insightful and at times harsh on how accordion players were treated or ignored. As he hits the rock era we find little for Triggs’ to talk about as the instrument has not been able to sustain a presence in that genre, although he does give a strong nod to one of my favorite musicians, Garth Hudson of The Band. But the overall history extends far back in time and Triggs takes us from a general time period into specific stories, often highlighting performers who were never recorded.
Triggs’ loves the accordion, but retains the ability to look at it objectively. And, yes, he does see the presence of the accordion increasing, which is something I certainly see in my world of presenting performers. It may not change overnight, but we can see the world in which the accordion once dominated (mid-20th century) to where it almost disappeared (late-20th century) finally finding its rightful place in a variety of musical genres. If you don’t believe me, just listen to the Accordion Noir show to see the range of this fascinating instrument.
Author: Kathleen McGookey
Publisher: Press 53
Publication Date: 2019
“Please come down and live with us,” says writer Kathleen McGookey as she invites us into this collection of prose poetry. I’m an unabashed fan of McGookey’s work, and have reviewed two of her previous collections, Heart In A Jar and Stay. Much of her work has focused on death and grief, but in Instructions for My Imposter we find McGookey taking us into life. Thus the opening line from “Invitation.”
Accepting the invitation takes us into a world that awakens from the smallest detail. As the feather on the cover implies, McGookey does not overlook many things in life and draws great depth from the simple parts of our existence.
Prose poetry is a unique form which can become overcrowded as a writer tries to fit too much in their writing. But McGookey is a poet who knows the value of a word and avoids wasting them. As prose poems go, hers are short but full.
In “Gratitude Practice” we get a listing poem, but the effect is far more than a list. It opens with “Thank you for the gray and fraying milkweed pods ready to release swirling clouds of silk” and continues on with being thankful for the “thankless task of making dinner again” and for the eye-rolls we all experience from others and the broken dishwasher, and then ends with:
thank you for the yellow leaves shaped like teardrops drifting from the birch, which hover a little, then fall as if falling is all they’ll ever do–
That stunning phrase, “fall as if falling is all they’ll ever do,” sends you back into the poem to recognize that gratitude is not for this or that, but for moments. McGookey has written a lot about loss, and with loss comes an appreciation for what you have, including the things that we are not normally grateful for in life.
Loss is still present in this volume and McGookey has the ability to capture many emotions in a simple phrase. In a short poem about her father’s death she writes:
I held the slight weight of absence in my palm before I scattered it under the wild dogwood, then brushed ash from my fingertips. The trees were blooming lavishly that year.
Again we find so much depth in her phrasing. “The “slight weight of absence” and how she “brushed ash from my fingertips.” All leading to a year of great blooms as death and grief can add to life. I wouldn’t be surprised if the trees did not bloom so lavishly, but the grieving person saw it that way. The gratefulness of the earlier poem weaving in here where, with the loss, we see the world in new ways.
Instructions for My Imposter is full of depth and well worth spending time with repeatedly. McGookey’s writing can become, as she says in another poem, “the gray sweater, soft as a rabbit, I pull on against the chill.”
You can read some of her work online at The American Journal of Poetry.
Author: Robert C. Bogison
Publisher: Independent
Publication Date: 2020 (review is based on advanced copy)
Memoirs from Vietnam veterans tend to range from the literary to the battle-focused, leaving many people wondering just what it was like to be a soldier in this conflict. Enter Robert Bogison’s memoir, “Up-Close and Personal: In-Country, Chieu Hoi, Vietnam. 1969-1970.” Bogison, an MP, takes us on his journey from boot camp to his readjustment at home.
It is a strong narrative that does not center around firefights (Bogison was in just three), instead focusing on the day-to-day work of a soldier. While most people think of MPs as standing guard, Bogison was an infantryman and then led a patrol boat crew. While some memoirs paint a glorified picture of the writer, Bogison not only laughs at himself but even questions his own outlook on the people he was defending.
Although not assigned to Vietnam, Bogison made several attempts to end up there only to find himself working a security detail. After more pleading, he finally finds himself in an infantry unit crawling through the mud, burning leeches off his body, and waiting for the enemy to appear.
A central part of the memoir focuses on a time when Bogison leads his troops on the patrol boat to find bodies from a helicopter crash. As they find the bodies in the river they are bloated and coming apart as the soldiers try to pull them in. It is a harsh section that takes any beauty out of death in wartime.
Bogison’s interactions with the Vietnamese people are rare and raw. He was not a fan of the Vietnamization of the war and found reasons to not trust South Vietnamese soldiers. At one point he is ready to kill a Vietnamese woman and finally, he nearly stops a family from taking their injured 4-year-old child onto a military helicopter because he thinks it might be a trap. Others intervene and he relents only to realize that there was no trap. The child dies while being transported in the helicopter.
“I was evolving into a brute who cared nothing for the child or the Vietnamese people. I had become what Army at war trains its soldiers to do. Win.”
Harsh, self-judgment assures us we are reading an authentic account of the author’s 14-months as a solider. Those with an interest in what happens to people in war, and that should be everybody, should read this memoir.
Author: Sigrid Undset (tran. Tiina Nunnally)
Publisher: Penguin Books
Publication Date: 1920 (1977)
Note: This review contains spoilers.
A great book does not need to create a likable central character to attract a reader. In fact, it can be the unattractive character who appeals to us in an exploration of evil, sin, or even a failure of morals. Or, conversely, we may find a character who is flawed but appealing in their humanity. Pulp fiction is built around detectives who both appeal and repel, but are ultimately attractive due to their humanness.
In Sigrid Undset’s first volume of the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, we find a young heroine who grows up to be so self-centered she is hard to like. In fact, she is quite unlikable but with none of the redeeming qualities we may find in other failed people. Instead, her life goes on and she seems to learn nothing from the damage she leaves in her wake.
This is 14th-century Norway and Kristin is the daughter of Lavrans and Rangfrid. While the mother is reclusive and depressed, Lavrans is a successful and popular farmer and close to young Kristin. They’ve lost infant sons and their youngest daughter, so Kristin is all they have. She is quick to fall in love, first falling for a farmhand who is later killed. Her father then gets her engaged to a young man she does not want to marry, but she agrees to spend time at the convent while awaiting her marriage. The convent is home not just to nuns, but young women waiting to return to life beyond the convent.
While there she meets Erlend Nikulausson in town and begins an affair with him (less than a year after losing her first love), including losing her virginity to him (the “wreath” represents her virginity). Erlend comes from a royal line but has been excommunicated by the Catholic Church and pushed aside by his family for having an open affair with a woman who is married to an elderly husband. Erlend and the woman, Eline, have two children together. While Erlend and Kristin profess their love for one another, Eline commits suicide. Kristin’s father is obviously reluctant to bless the union of Erlend and Kristin, so Kristin just acts depressed for nearly a year. Well, except when Erlend shows up again and she gets pregnant. Her father finally relents after his wife intercedes and Kristin manages to get married without people knowing her wreath is a lie.
In the end, I find her to be a self-centered young woman who forgets about her first love quickly, starts an affair she knows will tear apart her community, pushes away a father whom she has always loved, is not too upset when Erlend’s mistress conveniently kills herself, and in the end gets what she wants.
I don’t think I’m in the majority here. The trilogy is often cited as the reason that Undset received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928. Perhaps the other two volumes redeem Kristin, but I’m not patient enough to find out. While I may not like the main character, Undset’s writing is outstanding (as is the translation) and she brings medieval Norway to life. Some of the writing is pastoral, but she balances it with thoughtful dialogue and a range of characters. Kristin’s mother, Rangfrid, hovers on the edge for much of the book but when she emerges more at the end we see an insightful and deeply grieved woman.
In the end, I cannot recommend the book but I also know many will read it and enjoy it. We can’t love all the classics, but classics certainly rise above a sole blogger’s opinion.
Author: Louis Levy (Tran. by W.C. Bamberger)
Publisher: Wakefield Press
Publication Date: 1910 (2017)
“Don’t believe all the tales your soul whispers to you! Don’t take them at face value before you investigate further…
And keep constant watch on your doubt; make sure that it doesn’t disappear” (127).
Doubt, truth, and reason are at the center of this amazing book from the Danish writer, Louis Levy. Dr. Renard de Montpensier is conducting seances with Kzradock and realizes he holds the key to a mystery. We are then off to a mystery which contains surrealist aspects (a man who lives with his tapeworm), gothic horror (a haunting asylum and a house with faces in the attic windows), and a tough-talking American detective and a smooth French detective. The question is, what is real and what is imagined?
Dr. Renard de Montpensier (he always refers to himself by his full name) struggles as his life gets out of control, but then realizes his relationship with Kzradock “was the struggle between madness and reason” (70). Levy takes us into the mind of the insane and questions was is reasonable and not reasonable. When the patients take over the insane asylum, Dr. Renard de Montpensier goes to intercede. “I knew well the fate of these people, and I understood them. It was as if I looked out on all the worries and suffering of the world” (56).
As the story continues to unfold (and I’m hesitant to spoil the storyline) the question of what constitutes truth and reason are pushed forward. The focus is on doubt.
“Oh, the modern soul is badly in need of help and support…
And is has that help within itself.
It can doubt” (126).
While I’m giving an admittedly thumbnail view I highly recommend reading the novel. It has many elements to offer and is often described as fitting into pulp fiction because of its melodramatic episodes, although that is often part of the gothic horror tradition that I see more at work here. Regardless of how you interpret the novel, the writing is addictive and you will leave challenged on what is real and not real.
Although published in book form in 1910, it was not translated into English until 2017. Why is not clear, but Levy is clearly not a writer who has garnered much attention. He does not even warrant a Wikipedia page! Wakefield Press, the publisher, offers this life synopsis: “Louis Nicolai Levy (1875–1940) was a Danish author, playwright, foreign correspondent, and theater critic who experimented with a wide variety of literary genres, from prose poetry to nursery rhymes to philosophical novels. Though a central literary figure and screenwriter in Copenhagen in the early twentieth century, Levy remains little known today.”
Read the book and make some noise — more attention to him is warranted!
Author: Shusaku Endo
Publisher: Picador Modern Classics
Publication Date: 1969 (2016)
Note: This review contains spoilers since the ending is an important part of understanding the novel.
We Christians, like many of different faiths, love to play the martyr. Catholics make the martyrs saints, starting with the very first saint, St. Stephen (although the Holy Innocents are often called saints even though they knew not why there were being killed). The martyrs are those who face death instead of renouncing their faith, showing their belief in God’s word and promise of resurrection.
Shusaku Endo uses this concept as the basis for Silence, an outstanding novel that will make any Christian uncomfortable and let non-Christians in on the depth of faith for most believers. The story is set in 17th century Japan and the persecution of the Kakure Kirishitan (Hidden Christians). We follow the story, partly by letters, of a Portuguese Jesuit priest, Sebastiao Rodrigues (based on the real life Giuseppe di Chiara) who travels with another priest (Franciso Garrpe) in search of Father Ferreira. Once their beloved teacher, Ferreira is believed to have committed apostasy and the priests want to find him and serve the persecuted Christians of Japan.
For a while the two priests hide together in a hut, but eventually are taken to an island and opt to split up so they have a better chance to succeed in their mission. We follow Rodrigues as he travels a short time before being captured. Much of his time is spent in a prison where he is allowed to offer support to other Christians in jail, but all the time he is wondering when he will be taken to the “pit,” a gruesome torture that is said to have caused Ferreira to renounce his faith.
At one point Rodrigues is taken to a location where he sees Garrpe and other Christians being readied to be taken out to sea and drowned. They are wrapped up so they cannot move and will be dropped into the sea. Rodrigues is told that Garrpe can save the others if he renounces his faith. If he does not, they all die. Endo has changed the martyr narrative from one of giving your life for your faith to sacrificing others for your faith.
“‘Apostatize! Apostatize!’ He shouted out the words in his heart to Garrpe who was listening to the officials” (143). Rodrigues continues to silently encourage Garrpe to do this as all are put out to sea and drowned. Garrpe is now a martyr, but so are three others he could have saved.
Rodrigues’ faith, far from wavering, becomes stronger through this whole ordeal. He is routinely “interrogated” but only in the sense that they try to show him how his faith is either false or at least not one that will work in Japan. Instead, he begins to see Christ heading to the cross or crying tears of blood as he too felt abandoned. He realizes Christ is with him and has suffered as much as he can.
Rodrigues is at last brought to see Ferreira who indeed did apostatize and is now essentially a prisoner of the government. He has been given a house, a Japanese name, and a wife, whether he wants one or not. It is also announced that he is writing a book denouncing Christianity. The fact that he is kept under guard and not allowed to travel signals that even the Japanese believe he has not truly renounced his faith, although he is good to use as an example to others. Rodrigues does not seem to believe that Ferreira has truly renounced his faith, but he does not understand why he lives like he does.
Finally, Rodriques is taken to a urine-soaked cell where his willingness to die for his faith only increases. Indeed, he looks forward to the opportunity and refuses to renounce his faith to his interrogators. Finally, Ferreira is sent to talk with him and Rodrigues discovers the noise he is hearing outside his cell are the moans of those hanging in the pit where they are slowly bled to death. “Why must they suffer like this? And while this goes on, you do nothing for them. And God — he does nothing either” Ferreira tells him (179).
It is the silence of the title. The silence of God when his followers suffer, the silence of a God who does not answer prayers. Should Rodrigues match this silence and suffer a martyr’s death at the expense of three other people suffering? Finally, like Ferreira, he chooses not to let them suffer for his faith and he apostatizes.
He will continue to wrestle with if he made the right choice. “Lord, you alone know that I did not renounce my faith…I thought that if I apostatized those miserable peasants would be saved…I wonder if all this talk about love is not, after all, just an excuse to justify my own weakness”(186).
Or, perhaps, God is not so silent. It reminds me of the old joke about the man who was on the roof of his house during a flood and when a boat came to save him he sent them off saying God would save him. He sends away another boat and then a helicopter — and then drowns. When he gets to heaven he asks God why he didn’t save him. God responds that he sent him two boats and a helicopter, so what more could he do?
Perhaps Ferreira and Rodrigues have been truer to their faith then Garrpe, who died a martyr’s death. They now live as an embarrassment to their faith, rejected by their own faith community, and forever imprisoned to serve as an example of the weakness of their faith to the Japanese. But what Rodrigues does learn as he continues to see the suffering Christ is that God may not relieve suffering, but we do not suffer alone. Endo does not provide any easy answers but he challenges those who follow his faith, as he was a Catholic in a modern Japanese culture where his faith was at time persecuted.
The novel has been made into a film three times. First, Masahiro Shinoda Masahiro Shinoda made Silence in 1971. Director Joao Mario Griolo’s Os Olhos da Ásia in 1996 used the novel as a starting point. Finally, Martin Scorsese made a version of the film, also titled Silence, in 2016. I have not seen any of the films, so I offer no recommendations on them. But I highly recommend this incredible novel for everyone.
Authors: A.J. Cronin
Publisher: Rosetta Books
Publication Date: 1941 (2015)
A. J. Cronin wrote books well positioned in the Catholic tradition, but he does not present a sanitized view of the Christian faith and the challenges it presents to its followers. As a result, this excellent novel manages to delve into the depths of Christianity, show it sins, and still present the reader with hope. And this from a writer who does not fit into the traditional Christian framework.
The novel is set in the late in the 19th and early 20th century and tells the story of Father Francis Chisholm, a Scottish priest who discovers that his plans and God’s plans for him are not the same. He finds himself a curate who quietly does God’s work when others do not seem to like it. So, while his childhood playmate (friend would be too strong of a term) finds himself heading off to a glorious priestly career, Chisholm finds himself being sent off to rural China.
Even there he cannot follow the path set for him. While the Church prides itself of the number of converts, Chisholm loses his first converts when he finds out they are Christian because it provides them employment. He then turns down the conversion of a powerful village member who is converting because of medical help Chisholm offered to his family but Chisholm only accepts a conversion that is authentic.
Instead of seeking converts Chisholm decides to serve the village. With the help of some nuns sent to support him, Chisholm builds a mission that offers children an education, takes in the orphans, and feeds the village in times of need. But when a new warlord comes into the area and battles with village forces, Chisholm finds himself in a quandary. He rescues the wounded from the village and the new warlord demands compensation that will destroy the mission and the children and people within it. As a Christian, he is faced with the idea of entering the battle to save his people or to offer no harm, as his faith teaches him, and allow others to be hurt, raped, and/or killed. Either decision means death for others — not to decide is to decide.
It is these types of dilemmas that add such depth to this book. Chisholm is friends with the Presbyterian mission in town, refusing to see them as competition. He also peppers his conversations with quotes from Confucius. His openness to other faiths and denominations raises concerns among the institutional church. Even his greatly simple way of living, although very Christian, is viewed with suspicion.
In the midst of this Chisholm’s childhood “friend” is now his supervisor. While Cronin takes some easy shots at the priest who follows the company line to gain more power, he avoids a weak caricature that is easy to knock over. His characters have depth and he does a great job of creating a complex characters (in other words, realistic) such as Mother Maria-Veronica with whom he has a tempestuous relationship that develops into one of great friendship. No one is perfect in the book but Chisholm’s humility is born out of true faith.
The main story is held together between bookends of Chisholm’s time in Scotland which opens with him as an old priest who shares his story. At the end it returns to Chisholm as an old priest, but now we see him with new eyes.
A great book for Christians to read as it offers a realistic picture of the challenges and joys of faith, and a great book for non-Christians looking for an honest picture of the stumbling followers of Jesus.
A.J. Cronin
Cronin was a Scottish physician who was sent to the countryside for six months to recover from an ulcer. During that time he wrote his first novel, Hatter’s Castle, which was such a success he spent the rest of his life writing. He wrote over 30 novels, many of which were made into movies, including the influential The Citadel in 1937 which won the National Book Award in the U.S. Although many of his books deal with the Christian faith, he was for a time agnostic and later came to appreciate the mixed marriage of his Presbyterian father and Catholic mother. You can read more about him here.
Authors: Douglas Brinkley and Julie M. Fenster
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Publication Date: 2006
“His life, however, was not described by great occasions or grand gestures. His was the humility of moments, and the power beheld in the lightest of touches” (202). These lines at the end of this great book describe the life of Father Michael McGivney but may make some wonder why there is a biography of him. McGivney is the founder of the Knights of Columbus, a group for men in the Catholic Church which today numbers nearly 2 million men. But the authors don’t focus so much on that aspect as they use McGivney as an example of American Catholicism in the 19th century. More importantly, they give us insight in the role of the parish priest.
They bring alive the Connecticut atmosphere and connect it with the overall status of priests at the time to give a sense of what life would be like for these servants of God. While it makes no claims to be an overview of all American Catholicism during that time period, the book shows what it was like in the established East Coast and, surprisingly, recognizes the demands that parish priests face today.
McGivney becomes a priest after some of the more violent actions toward Catholics have subsided in the U.S., but prejudice against him because of his faith is something he shares with all his parishioners. In addition, we see how the Irish Catholics supplement the shortage of priests by importing priests from their homeland. McGivney is American born and goes through an educational process similar to today when a diocese directs their future priests to certain seminaries. It is this mix of Irish priests trying to connect with a more diverse parish that pushes McGivney from a quiet priest to one determined to meet people where they live. Before this priests were expected to spend most of their time on church grounds, but McGivney and others realize they need to reach out to people.
Right out of seminary he is put into a church with an ailing head priest and a mountain of debt, which he works at reducing but will never fully succeed at doing. The ailing priest is not an old priest, just another worn-out priest. The authors note that over a 12-year span the Hartford diocese had 83 priests. During the same time, 70 priests died, creating an 85% turnover rate. Why? While priests were exposed to more disease than most, they were also greatly overworked and had little, if any, time off. The authors note that most priests knew they would not live to be 50 years old, but to be fair we have to realize the average lifespan at that time was around 42 years. McGivney had just turned 38 when he died. Yet in the midst of all that, McGivney started yet another project with the Knights of Columbus.
Men’s groups were very popular during this time and many of them contributed funds in an early version of life insurance for widows and children. McGivney saw that many Catholic men were becoming more involved in these groups than the church, so he created the Knights as a way to offer a group that followed Catholic teaching yet created the same benefits for its members. In this, he was more successful than he would ever realize. Here I would like the authors to spend more time on this history because what is presented is so negative it is a surprise the Knights survived. Clearly, we are missing something.
There is now an official process underway for McGivney to be considered for sainthood. Since the book was published in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI declared McGivney “Venerable” in 2008. Catholics may now seek his intercession in prayers and if a miracle is attributed to him, he moves on to be called “Blessed.” This can be a long process, but if it occurs he would be the first American-born parish priest to be canonized.
Whether he is canonized or not (and the book takes no stand on that) McGivney is a priest worth reading about and this book is an excellent look into his life and American Catholicism in the late 19th century. If you are interested, you can visit the Knights of Columbus site to learn more about the group McGivney founded.
It seems obvious that a writer will love books, and Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The Shadow of the Wind is one that celebrates books. It opens with a visit to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books in Barcelona in 1945, where father and son go for the passing on of a tradition. The young boy is our main character, Daniel, and he learns that in this hidden library “Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul” (5). He is to choose one book that he will ensure will live forever and he takes a book he has never heard of, “The Shadow of the Wind” by Julian Carax. And then the story takes off.
Daniel has unwittingly entered a mystery as someone is determined to destroy all the books Carax wrote, even though hardly any of his books were sold. He is confronted by a man disfigured by fire who threatens him to turn over the book, but Daniel refuses. He also refuses to sell it to a rare book seller. Instead, Daniel is determined to find out what happened to Julian Carax and why someone wants all the books destroyed.
As the mystery continues, Daniel finds himself questioning his own choices, which begin to look like parts of Carax’s life story. He tries to explain all this to one of the people whose life intersects with Carax and Daniel. While it explains his involvement in this story, it also explains why so many people seek out novels. “I told her how until that moment I had not understood that this was a story about lonely people, about absence and loss, and that that was why I had taken refuge in it until it became confused with my own life, like someone who has escaped into the pages of a novel because those whom he needs to love seem nothing more than ghosts inhabiting the mind of a stranger” (179).
…I had taken refuge in it until it became confused with my own life, like someone who has escaped into the pages of a novel…
Zafon
The mystery takes Daniel into another world where sanity is lost, revenge is sought, and evil has power. Zafon takes the reader deep into the world, but loses the thread as some of the mystery becomes obvious. Toward the end of the book he drops in a long letter (over 80 pages) from one of the characters which basically ties up on the loose ends in a way too convenient for a book this well written. Zafon is a great writer and his characters speak in an other-worldly fashion that helps create a nearly magic-realist novel. Even if the mystery is wrapped up too neatly, the shadowy world he creates is an attractive place to spend time.
The novel, published in 2001, is one of the best-selling books of all time and Zafon has followed it up with three novels connected to this one as well as young adult novels. You can learn more about him and his writings at his website.
Azra Raza makes a bold claim in The First Cell and backs it up. “The art of medicine, once based purely on experience and observation, a hostage to tradition, gradually evolved into a practice increasingly driven by scientific evidence. More recently, it has undergone an unexpected transition by morphing into a monstrous business enterprise” (144). Raza is not against funding for cancer research as she has made this her profession and knows the personal costs as her husband died because of cancer.
Her frustration revolves around how funds are distributed and how research is separated from treatment. “The funding agencies continue to reward basic research in petri dishes and mouse models that bear little relevance for humans” (143). She is not alone in this as she quotes another critic, oncologist Vinay Prasad, who claims that the $700 billion spent on health care still leaves practiced medicine occurring based on scant evidence.
Raza has a solution. “The two immediate steps should be a shift from studying animals to studying humans and a shift from chasing after the last cancer cell to developing the means to detect the first cancer cell” (48). She is after the causes for cancer instead for treating it after cancer has been diagnosed.
The books tries to add a personal side with stories, but many go on too long and Raza is very good at quoting other people saying how incredible she is. “Call Azar, mom. She is on the cutting edge of cancer. I want her involved in my care” (199) is an example that happens often and her “aw, shucks” at all this praise is thin since she puts it in the book so often. Plus, she does not need this type of support as she makes a strong argument on her own.
Having watched my six-year-old die from neuroblastoma cancer, this is personal for me. We had the opportunity to have a researcher who was a practitioner work with him after his first relapse and he made good progress for a year before succumbing. That connection between research and practice is what Raza wants, and I think she is right. My son lived a happy year because of it and from what she learned, this doctor may help other children live much longer lives.
Poems by others. Ramblings by me.
Irreverence's Glittering New Low!
Always Reformed, Reforming
"Diving into a writers soul is discovering the broken treasure and beautiful mysteries that make you gasp for air."
Wish You Were Here
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable."- Helen Keller
Looking at dying and death for what it is: a part of life.
Life, Love and the Pursuit of Happiness. All Opinion, All of the Time.
Momming and dealing with grief - at the same time.
Creating a legacy, building community, and raising awareness after stillbirth as gay mothers
Homilies and thoughts from a Roman Catholic Priest
A Parish Priest with a Few Things to Say
Listen to your inner self..it has all the answers..
I have Malignant Melanoma, my son had Testicular Cancer
Journey on strength and healing through child loss
Life. Mental Health. Womanhood
A Mother's Journey
the chilly, enduring odor of bear 