I have been in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for the past two weeks with limited internet and not very active in blogland. I’ll write more about my time there, including a 50+ mile paddle around Drummond Island over the next few weeks. Here are the reviews of the books I read or listened to and completed in June. The long drive to the UP allowed me to listen to two of these books.

Derwin L. Gray, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, About Racial Reconciliation

 (Tyndale, 2020), 281 pages including notes.

Gray was an African American defensive back who played football for Brigham Young University and later for the Indianapolis Colts and the Charlotte Panthers. After several seasons of professional football, he was led by a teammate to accept Jesus. Later, with his wife, he started Transformation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. His church is an intentionally mix-race congregation. Gray was a speaker at this year’s HopeWords Writer’s Conference. 

 In the introduction and opening chapter, Gray discusses why he talks about race so much in his sermons. God has created the world with a variety, a kaleidoscope of colors. God loves diversity and longs to bring us all together, through the church, into one family. However, our churches are often less diverse than most our secular world. 

After the first chapter, Gray launches into a Biblical overview, where he starts with Abraham and discusses why he believes that God’s purpose from the beginning was to create a multi-racial family.  While he mentions that concept of humanity being created in God’s image, he begins his survey of scripture with Abraham’s promised family. While I might have started at creation itself, by tying together Abraham’s story with the vision of Isaiah, the teachings of Jesus, and the writings of Paul, Gray makes the case that God’s desire is for a multi-racial family. Of course, like all families, in this sin-filled world it will be messy. But in the life to come, we will experience it in fulness. 

In the second part of the book, Gray discusses what he has learned at Transformation Church and offers ideas for how we can forge relationships across color barriers. For white readers, he explains the differences in how blacks see the world from our perspective. 

I appreciate Gray’s interpretation of God’s vision. This book would make a great study for a church group. Chapters are short and ends with a beautiful Trinity-focused prayers followed by highlights, questions, and ways to implement what is being taught. 

Les Standiford, Palm Beach, Mar-a-largo, and the Rise for America’s Xanadu

narrated by John McLain,(Tantor Audio, 2019), 8 hours and 11 minutes. 

I have been a fan of Les Standiford since I first read his book on the Florida East Coast Railway, Last Train to Paradise. Since then, I have enjoyed his book on Charles Dickens and the writing of the Christmas Carol, The Man Who Invented Christmas, and his book on business partnership of Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, Meet You in Hell.

Palm Beach, Mar-a-largo, and the Rise of America’s Xanadu picks up the story of the visionary builder, Henry Flagler, whom Standiford introduced in Last Train to Paradise. In this book he mostly focuses on Flagler’s hotels and personal life instead of his railroads. Flagler first arrived in what would become Palm Beach in 1893. Soon, he was building resort hotels. After his wife was committed to an asylum (she thought she was engaged to the Russian Czar), Flagler obtained a divorce. Later, at age 70, he married a 34-year-old-woman from a wealthy North Carolina family, Mary Lily Kenan. Many North Carolina colleges have buildings named for the Kenans). The Kenans still control the Breakers, the five-star hotel Flager built on Palm Beach. 

Early on, Palm Beach was a resort for the newly rich. These who people not accepted into the “old money society” of Newport and other locations. In time, with the likes of sewing machine heir/developer Paris Singer and architect Addison Mizner, Palm Beach became an exclusive place with Mediterranean styles.  Standiford ponders if the high walls of the mansions and resorts were designed to keep out those who didn’t belong or to hide the scandal occurring within. 

After Flagler, Standiford focuses on the Post family. C. W. Post, who established Postum Cereal Company, doted on his daughter Marjorie Merriweather Post. In her 20s, she inherited much of her father’s estate and expanded the business (even into frozen foods). Marjorie was the one who built Mar-a-lago (which means from the lake to the sea as the property goes from Lake Worth on the backside of Palm Beach to the Atlantic). One of the interesting marriages in her long life was to E. F. Hutton, the New York stockbroker. Marjorie, the richest woman in American, and was the “senior partner” in that relationship. During the Great Depression their marriage broke up, partly for political reasons. Margorie was a supporter of Roosevelt’s “New Deal” while Hutton felt FDR was a socialist and preferred “trickle-down economics.”

In the early 1960s, Marjorie even offered Mar-a-largo was a winter White House, but it was decided the building was too expensive to maintain and impossible to safely secure the president. 

After Mar-a-lago had been shuttered for a decade, Donald Trump purchased the property at a basement price. From the beginning Trump ownership came with controversy. He bragged about paying more for the property until the tax bill came in at the higher rate, then he sued to get them to tax it at a much lower rate (from 13 million to 7 million). Finally, he worked out a deal to make the property a private club which provided him with tax favors and allowed him to share the burden of owning the property with others. 

This is a fascinating story. I enjoy how Standiford weaves together the stories of interesting characters around Palm Beach. 

George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain in Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

Narrated by the author and others. (Random House Audio, 2021), 14 hours and 44 minutes.

Over the past decade, I have read and listened to several of Saunders’ collections of short stories. Saunders teaches at Syracuse University. This book is based on one of his favorite classes in which he uses Russian authors. Those he draws upon wrote during a creative period of Russian history (between Napoleon’s invasion and the Bolshevik Revolution). Each section of the book begins with the story. In the audio version, a different voice reads the story, followed by Saunders’ discussing it. Many of the stories are about simple every day and even mundane events. Saunders helps his students and readers see how such a setting can make a great story. The stories include: 

Anton Chekhov, “In the Cart”
Ivan Turgenev, “The Singers”
Anton Chekhov, “The Darling”
Leo Tolstoy, “Master and Man” 
Nikolai Gogol, “The Nose”
Anton Chekhov, “Gooseberries”
Leo Tolstoy, Alyosha the Pot”

Some of the stories like “The Nose” are quite funny and many of the others, especially “Alyosha the Pot” are sad. This book would be helpful for anyone wanting to improve their writing, especially if they are working with fiction!  It is also a good introduction into Russian literature. Before reading this book, I had read some of Chekhov and Tolstoy’s stories, but not the others in the collection. 

Alex Pappademas, Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan

 audio book narrated by Michael Bulter Murray (Tantor Audio, 2024), 7 hours and 15 minutes. 

The rock group Steely Dan blended jazz and weird lyrics into some memorable rock tunes. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were the band’s mainstays. The two met in the late 60s at Bard College. Both loved jazz. In an earlier band in college, Chevy Chase (the comedian), played the drums. Over the years, Fagen and Becker drew on numerous other musicians to meet the needs of the sounds they sought, but the two remained the mainstay of the band until Becker’s death from cancer in 2017.

The band is known for mellow jazz-like tunes mixed, at times, with outrageous lyrics. Their songs feature those who down and out or on the other side of the law. These characters, which include drug dealers, violent or dirty old men, and a kid about seeking “cop suicide” as he yells, “don’t take me alive.”  Other songs involve love triangles. And then there’s the desire for inappropriate relationships. “Rikki Don’t Lose that Number,” was about Fagen trying to date the wife of a college professor at Bard.

Mostly, the extreme lyrics are presented without moral evaluation. The music behind the lyrics mellows the songs. Fagen and Becker often refused to interpret the songs, leaving them for the listener to figure out or if not, just to enjoy. It’s not surprising that the band’s name came from sexual object in Wiliam S. Burrough’s novel A Naked Lunch. 

Quantum Criminals runs through the discography of Steely Dan, while providing insights into the lives of Becker and Fagen. Those who enjoy the music of the band might enjoy this book. Or you might prefer to skip the book and just listen to their jazzy music without knowing all the secrets imbedded into the lyrics. The print book includes artwork by Joan LeMay depicting the characters in the songs of Steely Dan. 

While I only completed two books in May (compared to five in April), I am posting three reviews. I finally set out to complete Taylor Branch’s trilogy about the Civil Rights movement in America. I have one more volume to go!

Jim Shea, Get Up and Ride: A Humorous True Story of Two Friends Cycling the Great Allegheny Passage and C&O Canal 

(2020), 189 pages with some maps and photos. 

Somehow Facebook knows my brother and I are planning to peddle from Pittsburgh to Washington, D. C. in late May. I learned of this book in which two brothers-in-law did the same trip in 2010 from a Facebook advertisement.

Two brothers-in-law. One teaches and has his summers off. The other finds himself between jobs. They decided to do the trip they’d been talking about for a few years. This book is easy to read and humorous, although much of the humor reminded me of listening in at a restaurant to conversation of a family unknown to me. This is not Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods or the writings of J. Marteen Troost traveling in the South Seas. But I did laugh and their stories helped me envision my own planned trips. I just hope the weather is as good for us as it was for them. (It wasn’t as I showed in my blog: Part 1 and Part 2).  I can handle one day of rain, but it would be a bummer to have a week of rain! 

Most of the humor of the book come from the experiences of Jim and Marty before they set off to peddle to Washington. We learn about how they often vacation together (after all, their wives are sisters). While one is from Pittsburgh (and still lives in the Steel City), the other is from just outside Washington but now (or at the time of their trip), also lives in the Pittsburgh area. One is an avid bicyclist, and the other is kind of along for the ride. While there are a few humorous things which happened during their ride, most of the laughs come from how they relate within the two families. 

The author of the book speaks of not reading much as if that means he won’t sound like a Hemingway or Steinbeck. At least he can make light of himself, but I would suggest that he read more and learn about how humor works. Bill Bryson’s short adventures on the Appalachian Trail, A Walk in the Woods,  which he turned into an international best seller might be a good place to start. 

Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65

 (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1998), 746 pages including index, notes, and one set of black and white photographs.

This is the second volume of Taylor Branch’s massive undertaking of chronicling the Civil Rights Movement during the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Unlike the first volume (review below), this is less of a biography of King than recapping what happened in these three pivotal years to the Civil Rights movement. This included the Burmingham Church Bombings, the death of voter registration workers in Mississippi, and significant Civil Rights work in Mississippi, St. Augustine (Florida), and Selma Alabama. In the background there is the death of John Kennedy and America’s deepening involvement in Vietnam. 

In a way, reading this book is like reading the newspapers for three years. At times, it seems Branch jumps around, but the movement was in such flux with events happening in multiple places at the same time.

The book also takes us inside both political parties in 1964, as they struggled with what to do with the Civil Rights movement. The Democratic candidate, Lyndon Johnson, had just passed the 1964 Civil Rights act, shifting African Americans further away from the party of Lincoln, who’d freed the slaves. Furthermore, the Republican candidate Goldwater tried to avoid discussion on Civil Rights, there were those within the party who used the movement to steal away Democrats who were unhappy with their party’s move toward supporting the movement. This was the campaign in which Strom Thurmond would become a Republican and Jackie Robinson would condemn his Republican party as being the party of “white men only.” Robinson would later leave the GOP. 

Much is made of the FBI’s role with both King and other Civil Rights leaders. They helped solve the murders of Civil Rights leaders, but they also kept close eyes on the leaders of the movement, watching for communist connections. Through wiretaps, they learned of King’s infidelities an even used this to encourage King to commit suicide. They attempted to thwart King’s reception of the Noble Peace Prize, which he later received. They also called in Cardinal Spellman to give him the dirt on King to block a papal visit. While Spellman supposedly took the information to Rome, the meeting papal meeting still occurred partly due to the intervention of Rabbi Abraham Heschel. Like the first book in the series, King isn’t seen as totally a saint or sinner, but a man who struggled with depression and his own humanity.

Branch spends considerable time providing a background on the Nation of Islam and the conflict between its founder, Elijah Muhammad and Malcom X. The Nation of Islam created a vision of separation of the races and violence toward their enemies, which contrasted to King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference vision of a beloved community. The book begins with a deadly police encounter after a Nation of Islam meeting in South Central Los Angeles in 1962. Toward the end of the book, the Nation kills Malcom X after he left the Nation for a purer form of Islam. His view of religion had become less racially focused, and he softened his stance toward King’s nonviolent resistance. 

This book also shows the tension within churches over supporting Civil Rights. Not all African American churches supported the Civil Rights movement, with some seeing it too dangerous. After all, there were many firebombed churches in the American South during the early 1960s. Northern Episcopal bishops struggled with what to say as they didn’t want to be seen as challenging their southern colleagues. This led to the wives of some bishops taking up the clause. One of the interesting stories was the wife of a Massachusetts bishop and mother of the state’s governor, Mary Peabody, who was arrested and jailed for protesting in St. Augustine. 

I recommend this book to anyone wanting to better understand the Civil Rights movement in America. I don’t plan to wait another 19 years before I read Branch’s third volume. The final volume holds interest in me as I remember some of the events which happened. 

This review is from 2006, after reading the first book in Branch’s series: 

Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63

 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 1064 pages including index, notes, and two sets of black and white photographs. 

This book is an enormous undertaking, for both the author and the reader. The author provides the reader a biography of the Reverend Martin Luther King’s work through 1963, a view into the early years of the Civil Rights movement, as well as showing how the movement was affected by national and international events. This is the first of three massive volumes by Taylor Branch that spans the years of King’s ministry, from his ordination in 1954 to his death in 1968.

This volume also provides some detail about King’s family history and his earlier life through graduate school at Boston University. I decided to read this book after hearing Branch speak in Birmingham AL in June. It’s like reading a Russian novel with a multitude of characters and over 900 pages of text. However, it was worth the effort as I got an inside look as to what was going on in the world during the first six years of my life.

Branch does not bestow sainthood, nor does he throw stones. The greatness of Martin Luther King comes through as well as his shortcomings. He demonstrates King’s brilliance in the Montgomery Bus Campaign as well as in Birmingham. He also shows the times King struggled: his battles within his denomination, the National Baptist; King’s struggles with the NAACP; as well as his infidelities.

The FBI also had mixed review. Agents stood up to Southern law enforcement officers, insisting that the rights of African Americans be protected. They often warned Civil Rights leaders of threats and dangers they faced. However, once King refused to heed the FBI’s warnings that two of his associates were communists, the agency at Hoover’s insistence, set out to break King. Hoover’s inflexible can be seen as he reprimanded an agent for suggesting that King’s associates are not communists.

The Kennedy’s (John and Robert) also have mixed reviews. John Kennedy’s Civil Rights Speech (and on the night that Medgar Evers would be killed in Mississippi) is brilliant. Kennedy drew upon Biblical themes, labeling Civil Rights struggle a moral issue “as old as the Scriptures.” Yet the Kennedy brothers appear to base most of their decisions based on political reasons and not moral ones. This allows King to sometimes push Kennedy at his weakness, hinting that he has or can get the support of Nelson Rockefeller (a Republican).

Although we think today of the Democrat Party being the party of African Americans, this wasn’t necessarily the case in the 50s and early 60s. Many black leaders, especially within the National Baptist Convention leadership, identified themselves as Republicans, with Lincoln’s party.

Many of the black entertainers played in the movement. King was regularly in contact with Harry Belafonte, but also gains connections to Sammy Davis Jr., Lena Horne, Jackie Robinson, James Baldwin and others. The author also goes to great lengths to put the Civil Rights movement into context based on the Cold War politics. Both Eisenhower and Kennedy found themselves in embarrassing positions as they spoke out for democracy overseas while blacks within the United States were being denied rights.

The book ends in 1963, a watershed year for Civil Rights. King leads the massive and peaceful March on Washington. Medgar Evans and John Kennedy are both assassinated. And before the year is out, King has an hour-long chat with the President, Lyndon Johnson, a Southerner, who would see to it that the Voting Rights Acts become law. 

As a white boy from the South, this book was eye opening. I found myself laughing that the same people who today bemoan the lack of prayer in the public sphere were arresting blacks for praying on the courthouse steps. The treatment of peaceful protesters was often horrible. There were obvious constitutional violations such as Wallace and the Alabama legislature raising the minimum bail for minor crimes in Birmingham 10-fold (to $2500) to punish those marching for Civil Rights.

I was also pleasantly surprised at behind-the-scenes connections between King and Billy Graham. Graham’s staff even provided logistical suggestions for King. King’s commitment to non-violence and his dependence upon the methods of Gandhi are evident. Finally, I found myself wondering if the segregationists like Bull O’Conner of Birmingham shouldn’t be partly responsible for the rise in crime among African American youth. They relished throwing those fighting for basic rights into jail, breaking a fear and taboo of jail. The taboo of being in jail has long kept youth from getting into trouble and was something the movement had to overcome to get mass arrest to challenge the system. In doing so, jail no longer was an experience to be ashamed off and with Pandora’s Box open, jail was no longer a determent to other criminal behavior. 

I recommend this book if you have a commitment to digging deep into the Civil Rights movement. Branch is a wonderful researcher, and his use of FBI tapes and other sources give us a behind the scenes look at both what was happening within the Civil Rights movement as well as at the White House. However, there are so many details. For those wanting just an overview of the Civil Rights movement, this book may be a bit much. As for me, I’m looking forward to digging into the other two books of this trilogy: A Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65 and At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68.

Timothy Egan, A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them 

(2023, Penguin Books, 2024), 404 pages including index and notes on sources. 

A Personal note: In late 2010, I was visiting with Earl, a parishioner of First Presbyterian Church of Hastings (Michigan), who was dying.  Earl was 96 years old and had lived in Hastings since 1950. Another friend of Earl’s, who was also in his 90s, was present. I no longer remember his name, but I remember that he had grown up in Hastings and was Catholic. The man talked about coming back into town with his father, from a trip to Grand Rapids. On a field outside of the town there was a large cross burning and a huge crowd of men in white robes. His father immediately ordered him to get on the floor of the car. Fright took over his father (and him).   In the 1920s, the Klan was popular in the heartland, as Egan reminds us.  

My review:  Does character matter? Do we expect our leaders to adhere to moral standards? These are questions we should ask ourselves. After all, in the past decade, we’ve had the “me too” movement, which lead to many resignations of politicians, preachers, educators, and others in positions of leadership. Then, in a backlash, none of it seem to matter as we elect to office those convicted of sexual offenses.  The appointment of others despite moral failures including sex and drug abuse and alcoholism occur.  In a way, reading Egan’s book about a situation in the 1920s, makes me wonder what has changed. If anything, this book just makes another case proving human depravity. 

In the early 1920s, D. C. Stephenson arrived in Indiana. Within two years, he would become the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan of the state. By the mid-20s, Indiana had the most Klan members (by percentage of population) of all the states. The Klan was no longer strictly a southern institution. Many municipalities even in the heartland already had “sundown laws,” which barred African Americans after the sunset. The Klan was also strong in Colorado and Oregon. 

The growth of the Klan in the 1920s was racist, just like the Southern Klan during Reconstruction. But they had broadened their racial views to include immigrants from Eastern Europe, especially Catholics and Jews. In the West, they added Asians to those they saw as a threat to American values. Notre Dame University became a big target in Indiana. Egan suggests that their mascot, “The Fighting Irish” came not from their undefeated football team, but the students battling the Klan who held a rally in South Bend. 

In addition to racial hatred, the Klan of the 1920s encouraged the purity of white women and supported prohibition. While the Klan was men-only, there were significant numbers of auxiliary groups for women and children.  

In Indiana, the Klan held power. They donated to both political parties and to churches with whom they sought to ally in their vision of an idolized America. They owned the governor and legislatures and local officials. People assumed Stephenson would eventually fil an empty Senate seat. The Klan was thinking big, including having eyes on the Presidency. 

But for the Klan leadership in Indiana, especially for Stephenson, the rules didn’t apply. He was a masochist and felt women were his for the taking. He used intimidation to silence women he abused. Also, with his close supporters, he not only drank, but drank to excess. 

When Stephenson set his eyes on Madge Oberholzer, an attractive young woman who’d asked for his help for her job with the state, things swirled out of control. She resisted his advances. He kidnapped her. When she made it back home, she was dying. He had not only brutally beaten her but had also severely bitten her all over her body. When she couldn’t escape, she attempted suicide. 

As she lay dying from her abuse, she dictated a statement which was notarized as her testament, a legal maneuver which allowed her to “speak from the grave,” into a court of law.  His friend, the sheriff, arrested Stephenson. But instead of eating jailhouse food, the sheriffs wife cooked his food.

Stephenson and two associates went to trial. The trial began after a lot of legal maneuvering over what could and couldn’t be admissible as evidence. While the court didn’t allow several additional women to testified of their rapes by Stephenson, it also kept out of court Stephenson’s past included an abandoned wife and child. While Stephenson’s followers attempted to bride officials and jury, the jury returned a verdict of guilty of second-degree murder.  

The trial brought to the public’s attention the hypocrisy of the Klan’s leadership. In the aftermath of the trial, the Klan in Indiana declined almost as fast as it had risen. 

Americans should read this book. The use of “American enemies” to cause a groundswell against the “others” is nothing new. Thankfully, in the 1920s, folks like Madge Oberholzer and a few brave newspapers, ministers, academics, and politicians stood fast against the rising intolerance. It’s never fun to be the one who speaks out, but speaking out is important. 

Hannah Anderson, All That’s Good: Recovering the Lost Art of Discernment 

(Chicago: Moody Publishing, 2018), 215 pages including study questions for each chapter and source notes.

I became acquainted with Anderson’s work through the HopeWords Writer’s Conference in Bluefield, West Virginia, which I have attended three times. Anderson is a regular at the conference and one of the ones who works behind the scenes to put the conference on each year. (Soon, I hope, I’ll post a review of this year’s conference).  I am also looking forward to hearing good things about her when she preaches for me this June (sadly, I’ll be out-of-state that Sunday). 

This book is divided into three parts. The first part deals with what’s good and why we should seek it out. In part 2, Anderson approaches discernment using Paul’s exhortations at the end of Philippians. Drawing on verses 8 and 9, she works through the verses dealing with “whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely and commendable. In Part 3, she looks at the meaning of the good and how we’re to work through a community for the common good. 

Anderson writing is a pleasure to read. She draws on her own memories to illustrate her points. I recommend this book to those interested in fostering a world where we celebrate the good, the beautiful, and the empathic.  This is the second book I’ve read by Anderson. The first, Humble Roots, I reviewed in 2022.

Pat Conroy, The Great Santini 

(1976, HarperAudio 2023), 18 hours and 4 minutes. 

It’s 1960. Having just returned to America from a stint in the Mediterranean, Bull Meacham is given the command of his own Marine Corp Fighter Squadron in Ravenell, SC. He meets up with his family in Atlanta, where they had been staying with his wife (Lillian) family. They then make a long early morning drive across Georgia and South Carolina. That drive seems to take forever, but in it we get to experience characteristics of Bull and his family. None of his children want to move, especially Ben, who will be a senior in high school. They’ve all been through this drill of having to make friends again. 

Ben quickly makes two friends. One is a Jewish boy whom he comes to his aid during a fight and the other is a stuttering young African American man who raises flowers, produce, and honey as well as collecting oysters and gigging flounder for a living. Sadly, Ben loses both friends. The Jewish boy’s family sends him for safety while another white boy kills the African American. 

While this goes on, Ben finally beats his father in one-on-one basketball. Bull’s lost didn’t go over well. His father, the Great Santini, fears getting older. He also fears changes to his beloved Marine Corps, that they’re losing their toughness.  A few characteristics of his father became grating by the end of the book. When he would enter the home, he’d shout, “Stand by for a fighter pilot.” He would call those he’s talking to, “Sports Fans.” 

Ben finds his place in high school on the basketball team. He becomes the star, but his father comes to a game drunk and encourages Ben to take out a kid on the opposing team he’s guarding. Ben snaps and breaks the boys arm, which ends with him kicked off the team for the remaining of the season. When Ben turns 18, his father takes him to the officer’s club. Ben comes home drunk, like his father, ruining the planned family dinner that evening. 

This book touches on many themes. Child and spouse abuse, father/son relationships, coming of age, race relationships, life in a small southern town in the early 1960s, and the Yankee/Southern conflict (Bull was from Chicago and Lillian from the South). The story is fictionalized, but Conroy draws on his famil experiencesy. I have heard his novel didn’t go over well in his family and I can see why.  In real life, the Great Santini didn’t die as he does in the book (which I left out of the book as it would be a spoiler). Conroy later wrote a nonfiction book about his father titled The Death of Santini. 

I enjoyed the story. The book is easy to follow. Conroy tells it in a chronological fashion. There are similar themes to the other Conroy books I’ve read (Prince of the Tides, The Water is Wide, and South of Broad). All these books center on the Low Country of South Carolina. Thoese (except for The Water is Wide) were published later in Conroy’s life and show a more mature writer.  I have also seen the movie, which came out in 1979, but it’s been decades so I don’t remember enough to compare the book and the movie.

Two Commentaries on the Gospel of Mark

James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 550 pages 

Morna D. Hooker, The Gospel According to Saint Mark (1991, Hendrickson Publishers, 1997), 424 pages

For the past sixteen months I have been working my way through the gospel of Mark. I have preached 53 sermons from Mark. At the beginning, I read through one short commentary by Doug Hare, a former professor of mine. Then, I read through these two commentaries as I worked my way through the gospel, finishing both this past month. 

Of the two commentaries on Mark, my favorite would be the one by James Edwards. I first became familiar with his writing with his excellent 2015 commentary on Luke. This commentary on Mark was published 14 years earlier. Both books are a part of the “Pilar New Testament Commentary” series.  This author is very familiar with the early church and the role Mark’s gospel in the early church. I have previously reviewed his book From Christ to Christianity.  My complaint is that the author didn’t do his own translation and seems to mostly depend on the New International Version of the Bible.

The commentary is easy to read and follow. I especially liked Edward’s use of “Mark’s sandwiches”, a literary technique in the second gospel in which two different themes merge into one passage. The first is mentioned, then Mark moves off on what seems to be a tangent as he writes about something else., Then he returns to the first subject. Soon, having been introduced to the concept, I found such constructions even before reading the commentary. By playing the two ideas off each other helps the reader of the gospel to grasp deeper thoughts. 

I also appreciated how Edwards, when things needed more explanation, would insert an “Excursus” to better explain an idea. 

The second commentary by Morna Hooker was republished as a part of Black’s New Testament Commentaries Series.  In this series, the author was expected to provide her own translation, which she does while admitting that she started her work using the New English and Revised Standard Versions of scripture. Hooker is retired but taught at Cambridge (and the commentary does have an “English feel” to it). 

Like Edwards commentary, Hooker’s work is easy to read and understand. Neither commentary gets so far into the weeds that one has difficulty following. With her own translation of the text, Hooker’s work is a welcomed addition to the more traditional types of commentaries. 

In addition to these commentaries, I have also read all or parts of commentaries by Douglas R. A. Hare, Mark: Westminster Bible Companion (Louisville, KY: WJKP, 1996), William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1974), Mary Ann Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in Literary-Historical Perspective (1989, Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996); Brian K. Blount, Go Preach! Mark’s Kingdom Message and the Black Church Today (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1998), and David Rhoads and Donald Michie, Mark as Story: An Introduction of the Narrative of a Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982). 

Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

 (New York: G. P. Putman and Sons, 2018), 372 pages. 

Kya Clark, “the Marsh Girl” lives in the salt marsh of Eastern North Carolina. As a child, her mother abandons the family. Then one by one, her siblings’ leaves. Finally, her father, the one who has run everyone else off, leaves. Abandoned by everyone who should have cared for her, she learns how to survive. She digs shellfish and sells them to Jumpin, an old African American who sells gas and bait along the marsh. Jumpin and his wife Mabel, in a way, become surrogate parents for Kaya. She gets by, eating what she collects along with making enough money to buy cornmeal and oil in town. 

Kya only spent one day in the school. Picked on by other children, she never went back, always staying one step ahead of the truancy officer. She befriends Tate, a former friend of one of her brothers. Over time, Tate teaches her to read and begins to lend her books which allows her to learn more about the marsh. But he, too, leaves as he heads to Chapel Hill for college. He fails to come back as promised. Only later, does he come back and try to re-establish contact as he establishes a nearby research lab on the marsh.  Kya, who had taken up painting, becomes a self-taught an expert in marsh ecology. She even publishing books based on her paintings. 

While feeling abandoned by Tate, Chase, another town boy seeks out Kya. Primarily interested in sex, Chase promises to marry her and build her a house. Then Kya learns through the newspaper of his engagement to another woman.  Later, in 1969, Chase ends up dead, having fallen from a fire tower. It’s not clear if foul play is involved, but Chase’s mother points the finger at Kya. Eventually, the sheriff on sketchy evidence, arrests Kya. Tried for murder, she’s found not guilty. 

After this ordeal, Kya and Tate get back together, living in the marsh until Kya dies from a heart attack in her 60s. Afterwards, Tate discovers Kya’s secret, which he had not suspected. 

Owen captures the beauty and diversity of the marsh. The reader also feels empathy for Kya, someone who has fallen through the cracks. While alone, she develops resilience but is unable to trust anyone else. Only later, at her trial, do we learn there were those in the town who tried to help her, such as the woman at the grocery story who would give her back more change than was due, taking the money out of her own pocket.  

This an enjoyable read. I recommend this book. Having grown up near the marsh in North Carolina, this book helped take me back to a time the marsh wasn’t overgrown with housing. 

Bernard DeVoto, The Hour: A Cocktail Manifesto

 (1948, Portland OR, Tin House Books, 2010), 127 pages. 

For the past few years, I have avoided alcohol during most of January, at least when I been at home. But I break my fast on the 25^th, to celebrate the birth of the Scottish bard, Robert Burns, with a shot of “Balvenie” and the reading of a few poems.  So, why I chose to read a book about the cocktail hour during January is beyond me. But so far, I managed to keep the fast. Instead of placing this book in a bookcase, I have stored it in my liquor cabinet. For like a good Scotch whisky, one should savor this book.. 

Bernard DeVoto died two years before my birth. But as a some-times 19^th Century Western American historian myself, I have been familiar with his work for nearly forty years. Decades ago, I read a couple of his classics: Year of Decision, and Mark Twain’s America. Both were serious works, although one can’t deal with Twain without enjoying a good joke. Last year I read This America of Ours, a biography of DeVoto and his wife Avis. From that biography, I learned of this little book. Much of the book had me laughing out loud. DeVoto precision details about the making of a good martini ranks up there with George Orwell’s essay on how to make a proper cup of tea. I wonder if perhaps Orwell might have inspired DeVoto as his essay appeared two years before DeVoto copyrighted his work. 

DeVoto and his wife were known for their cocktail parties. Much of what makes this short book so funny is DeVoto’s seriousness. It’s his way or the highway. Those who disagree with him, from his perspective, deserve some terrible fate. 

In the opening essay, DeVoto praises America’s greatness for we have “enriched civilization with rye, bourbon, and the martini cocktail.” He also praises Scotch and Irish whiskeys alongside of bourbon and rye, insist they consumed straight. He had no use for rum and was willing to damn to hell those who abided in the nasty drink. However, as a historian, he knew rum’s role in American’s history and acknowledges how rum played a role in our freedom and in the institution of slavery. Had the sailor’s “primordial capitalist bosses not given them rum, [they] would have done something to get their wages raised.” 

The second chapter begins with an assault on recipes for various cocktails found in cookbooks and women’s magazines. In DeVoto’s world, these are all unnecessary, for one either drank whiskey or a martini. Pity the poor man who would allow vermouth and whiskey to meet for “the Manhattan is an offense against piety.”  Of course, vermouth is used with gin to make a martini. In DeVoto’s world, it better be dry vermouth. And don’t get cute with your drinks. He bemoaned a bar in Chicago which offered “Whiskey on the Barney Stone.” They used green colored ice. DeVoto suggested the proprietor be “put to the torture.” In a later chapter, he goes after the couple who has all kinds of fancy drinking kitsch such as stoppers featuring women’s legs, fancy stirring rods, and signs about drinking. DeVoto had no patience with such foolishness, but then they were probably making daiquiris. 

Long before James Bond, DeVoto suggested it didn’t matter if one shook or stirred the martini. What mattered, however, was avoiding splinters of ice in the drink. Each round of martinis is to be made fresh. There can be no salvation for the man who makes pitchers of martinis and stores them in the refrigerator. Those who desire an olive in their drink were probably denied a pickle in their childhood which sent them on a lifelong quest for brine. As for those who want an onion, “strangulation seems best.”

The only thing one might mix in with whiskey are bitters, but then only Angostura bitters. And no fruit salads. The fruit from orchards do not belong in cocktails. Drinks should be served cold. I’m not sure what DeVoto thought about Japanese sake, which is usually served warm. Writing in the aftermath of the war, he probably thought it justified the use of the bomb. 

In the third chapter, DeVoto attacks the enemy of drinks—sugar. He believes the reason too many people want sugary drinks is that we give our children too much sugar.  “An ice cream soda can set a child’s feet in the path that ends in grenadine…” While such drinkers are to be pitied, they should also be treated as “a carrier of typhoid.” DeVoto even prophesizes the demise of our Republic will most likely come for “this lust for sweet drinks.” And sugar comes from other sources, not just crystals. Fruit has no place during the cocktail hour. DeVoto suggests “orange bitters make a good astringent for the face,” but they don’t belong in drinks. 

I did take a bit of offense at DeVoto’s attack on winter drinks. He has no use for eggnog or a Tom and Jerry. I assume If he hears I occasionally like a hot butter rum after spending time outdoors on a cold snowy day, he’d roll in his grave. But then, that’s a ski drink, and DeVoto didn’t care for the sport. 

I wish I had read this book 25 years ago. Two friends of mine from Utah, both now deceased, would have enjoyed it. Or maybe just one of them. Ralph insisted on making his and his wife’s martini, one at a time. Thankfully, he always had some good peaty Scotch to offer me. Myron, however, might have taken offense. Myron was one of those martini drinkers who made the drink by the pitcher and stored it in the fridge. DeVoto would have had a cow had he witnessed Myron pouring himself a martini from a pitcher he mixed three days earlier. But I never blamed Myron, for he always offered me a pour from a bottle of Glenmorangie

Obviously, while I have never cared for martinis, I enjoyed this book. If you want a martini, that’s fine. Just offer me some converted rye, corn, or barley, aged in a white oak barrel. Ice would be nice, as long as it’s not green.  

Sarah Frey, The Growing Season: How I Built a New Life-and Saved an American Farm

 (Audible, 2020), 8 hours and 41 minutes.

In a way, this book reminded me of Stephanie Stuckey’s book which I read last year.  Both are women executives leading major companies. But that’s where the comparison stops. Stuckey came from a well-to-do family. She took over her family’s business as it was about to completely go under and lead back to thriving. However, Frey came from a very modest background and built a major business.  

In this book, Frey describes her childhood on “the hill,” a small farm in southern Illinois. Her dad, who had ties to horse racing, always wanted to have a winning horse and sunk all the money the family was able to provide into his beloved horses. While he doted on his daughter, he could be mean. This was especially true tohis sons and wife. He also had another family before setting out with Sarah’s mother, which gave Sarah and her brothers a huge family of stepbrothers and sisters. Yet, for all his faults, he instilled in his daughter a belief she could do anything.

As Sarah grew older, and her older brothers began to move out on their own, the family began to collapse. Still in high school, Sarah moved out on her own and continued to work and attend school. Having watched her mother buy watermelons for local farmers and sell them to supermarkets, she tries it on her own. Soon, she was borrowing money from a bank for a larger truck. Her business thrived and after two months was able to pay off the truck. She would continue expanding, adding pumpkins to extend her season. Soon, she realized that she should also start raising some of the produce to provide better returns. When the bank took over her father’s farm, she went back to the banker who’d lent the money for the truck. He. helped arrange the purchase of the property from the bank which held the title. 

Then, as a nearby Walmart distribution center opens, she talks the produce buyer to let her provide watermelons and pumpkins. She readily agreed she could supply them the four loads a week, thinking of her normal load and not four loaded tractor trailers. Realizing she was about to get in over her head, she gave a call to her brother. Soon, she has all her brothers working with her. 

In time her business expanded and included not just Walmart, but most major grocery stores. She also began producing drinks made of vegetable and fruit juices. In telling the story, lots of things seem to be left out (such as financing and attorneys). Throughout the book, but especially at the end, she continued to hit several key points. These include giving people a chancl, treating employees and customers right, hiring those with potential whom others over look, and being creative such as using that usually left in the field for other products. While a lot of the book focuses on herself, she always offers thanks to those who helped her along the way.

Frey is also frank about her husband. And while the marriage didn’t work out, it gave her two boys whom she now tries to spend more time with. 

While I felt a lot of details were missing, I enjoyed this book. It’s a fast read/listen.

John Musgrave, The Education of Corporal John Musgrave

2021, Random House Audio, 9 hours and 38 minutes

He always wanted to be a Marine. At the age of 17, John Musgrave signed up with the Corp, having his parents sign for permission. The summer after graduation, he left the Midwest with a couple of friends for the Marine Corp training facility in Southern California. The experience nearly killed him, metaphorically.  He describes the experience the rude awakening once they arrived by train to graduation. But he endured and became a proud Marine. This was 1966 and, after advance training, he headed to Vietnam. 

At first, Musgrave was excited about the war. They sailed from California to Vietnam on a troop ship. He was first assigned to an MP group in the southern part of the country, but wanting more action, volunteered for a transfer. The transfer landed him just south of the DMZ, a unit known as the Walking Dead, as they were taking so many casualties. He complained when military took away his M14 and gave them all M16, with just one cleaning kit per squad and how they gun so often jammed, which lead to many dead Marines. 

Musgrave writes with honesty, as he had done with his boot camp experiences. He tells about his first enemy kill. He discusses the hardship of slipping through the wire to conduct night patrols. He’s honest about how scared they were, in the dark jungle where one not only had to deal with the enemy but mosquitoes and leeches. 

Twice wounded, the second time he took a bullet in the chest. No one thought he would make it, even some of the doctors who treated him. But one surgeon didn’t give up. Eventually, he is stabilized and moved out of the country to better facilities in Japan before moving back to the States. He’d spent 11 months in country. 

Throughout the first half of the book, Musgrave shares personal struggles. Although his father served in World War 2, he and his mother continued to worry about him being in the Corp. He was in love with a girl from his high school and wanted to get married, but she broke off their relationship. He is also very honest about his religious feelings. As a Methodist, a Catholic neighbor had given him a St. Christopher’s medallion which he carried wore on his dog tags. The medallion causes him to be superstitious, thinking that if he keeps it, it will protect him. However, the day he was wounded a second time, he had a premonition he would die that day. While he lived, it was a close call. 

Arriving back in the states, Musgrave discovered things were different. The anti-war movement was just beginning. At first, Musgrave didn’t want anything to do with it as he began college. But soon agreed that the war was a mistake and began to speak out. He became a leader in the Vietnam Vets Against the War movement and even helped led the protests in Miami during the Republican National Convention in 1972.  

While Musgrave eventually became a leader of the movement, he continued to work to bring Vietnam Veterans together. He is critical of how Vietnam Veterans were not welcome in American Legion and Veterans of Foreign War posts. Through this, he struggles with his pride at having been a Marine and the guilt of having fought an unjust war.  As our nation experienced other wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he worked with veterans, helping them cope as they returned home. 

I enjoyed the book. Growing up watching the news every night at the dinner table, the Vietnam War was always very real. I knew lots of veterans and wondered if it was in my future. Thankfully, we pulled out of the war when I was a sophomore in high school. As I was preparing for graduation, Saigon fell and the war was over.