Category: Reviews

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Where is Home?

Billy Beasley, Home (Abbeyville, SC: Moonshine Press, 2022), 234 pages. 

Reading Billy’s book on Cape Lookout

Things just don’t seem to go Trent Mullins way. Never able to please his father, he has stopped trying. Two different women have broken his heart (and one of them twice). Depression has set in. To break out of the depression, without pills, Trent finishes up his business in Wrightsville Beach and leaves everyone behind, including his high school age son, and heads to Brunswick, Georgia. Most people don’t even know where he’s at, except Jackson, one of his friends. In Brunswick, he manages a small marina and lives in a small, isolated house out by the water. His landlords are a black couple who run a restaurant in Dylan Town. Then the call comes. Trent learns his father is dying. He heads back to Wilmington where he’s forced to face and make peace with his past. But where is Trent’s home? Where is our home? 

Billy Beasley weaves a good story. Like his other stories, this one is set mostly around Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach, a place where I lived from age 9 to 24. The other setting, along the Georgia Coast, is a place I lived for six and a half years. And even though Dylan Town isn’t a real place, there are similar towns along the Georgia coastal plain. All one must do to find them is to gets off Interstate 95 and travel the backwoods roads lined with live oaks draped in Spanish moss.  

This is Beasley’s fourth book and I’ve read them all. This is also the third book I reviewed in this blog. The others I’ve reviewed here include The Girl in the River and The Preacher’s Letter. In addition to exploring family themes, like his other books, this one also explores friendships across racial lines. Without being preachy, Beasley also interjects his faith into the story. My only criticism of the book is that Beasley spends a little too much time telling us what is going on in Trent’s mind. Showing instead of telling us what he’s thinking would have strengthened parts of the book. 

Two weeks ago, when I was in Wilmington for Williston’s 9th Grade Center 50th Anniversary project, I was also able to attend Beasley’s book release party at Noni Bacca winery the next afternoon. I was glad to go as I caught with another friend from high school that I haven’t seen since graduation. I have known Billy since the fourth grade and generally, when I’m in town, we’ll meet up for coffee or a beer.  

 

Billy signing a copy of his book for Wayne, another classmate of ours from Williston and Hoggard days
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Books on Poetry and Writing and a Poem

Mark Jarman, Dailiness: Essays on Poetry

(Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2020), 177 pages.  

I became acquainted with Jarman’s poetry through poems published in the Reformed Journal.  Dailiness consists of a series of long essays on various aspects of poetry. Originally, I thought I would use this as evening reading, but the essays were too long and deep for that. I found myself falling asleep. They required more attention, so I began to read them in the morning with better success. Not only do these essays need to be read, but they also need to be pondered. As they are independent of each other, I recommend reading one per sitting.  In each essay, Jarman muses about aspects of poetry as he reflects on a concept (like dailiness) while engaging in a conversation with poems throughout the ages. 

After opening with a reflection of the epic Gilgamesh, the author explores the role of metaphor and repetition in poetry. He insists on the need for one to write daily with two essays (dailiness) and devotes essays to poetry as devotion and as part of the religious life. Here, he attempts to save the George Herbert (the parson poet) from critiques of T. S. Eliot and Samuel Johnson. However, to Herbert’s credit, Coolridge appreciated his poetry and Simone Weil credits one of his poems for her Christian conversion. Jarman (as with Malcolm Guite who I review below) explores the work of Seamus Heaney. I found his concluding essay on the pronoun “Something” inspiring.  Reading this essay after church on Palm Sunday, which lead me to write the poem below.  

I liked the book but would only recommend it to those serious about poetry. In a good way I found myself often looking up words (not in a dictionary, but with google on my phone).  Like many books I read this one provided me with another book to check out, John Drury, Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert (University of Chicago, 2014). 

Now here is my poem:

Palm Sunday 2022

Something is happening and will happen this week.
Something so dark and terrible we can barely comprehend over the noise of this day 
filled with excitement and expectation 
as the Messiah rides into Jerusalem to the cheers of the crowd.
For evil lurks behind these walls and in the minds of those in power, 
and soon, the expectation of the crowd will melt into the excitement of a spectacle 
as the innocence one dies and the guilty go free.

Something is happening and will happen this week.
Something so wonderful and hopeful we can barely comprehend over the noise of this day 
filled with excitement and expectation 
as the Messiah rides into Jerusalem to the cheers of the crowd.
For the goodness of God prevails over evil and in the deep darkness of the week, 
on the stillness of the morning of the third day a light will burst from a tomb 
as the innocent one rises and the guilty pardoned. 

                                    -Jeff Garrison, April 10, 2022

Malcolm Guite, In Every Corner Sing: A Poet’s Corner Collection

 (Norwich, UK: Canterbury Press, 2018), 196 pages.

I had not read Guite when I heard him speak at the HopeWords Writing Conference in Bluefield earlier this month. While there, I purchased and had him sign this collection of his columns which appeared in Church Times, a British magazine. Each article is about 500 words or two to two and a half pages in length. Although English, Guite spent part of his years growing up in Canada. As I read this book, I enjoyed getting to know him better. Each article draws on poetry, from ancient to modern poets including a few from his own hand. 

 In them, he muses about poetry and the natural world. We learn of a man who enjoys many things, from smoking a pipe to walking his dogs. We also learn of his deep faith in Christ, his delight at the natural world, and how we are connected to those who came before us. Most of these essays have a nice twist at the end. In one story, he marvels at an old bridge as he canoes “Willow” on a river through the bridge. The last two arches in the bridge are “new.” They were rebuilt after having been destroyed Cromwell’s era (17th Century) to prevent an army from taking a town.  After flirting with the bridge, the poetry of Tennyson and Eliot, he ends marveling at the bridge God has built through Christ that cannot be destroyed. 

This was a perfect wind-down book for the evening as I could read through four or five of the seventy-three columns, before closing the book, turning out the light, and going to bed. 

Peter Yang, The Art of Writing: Four Principles for Great Writing that Everyone Needs to Know

(TCK Publishing, 2019), 89 pages. 

Yang distills the writing process into four principles: Economy, Transparency, Variety, and Harmony.  And, with homage to “economy”, he does this in 89 pages. A lot of people could benefit from these principles to help clarify their thoughts on paper. This is the value of this small volume. While this may not be on par with William Zinsser’s On Writing Well, few people will wade through Zinsser’s more detailed prose. What Yang provides are simple ideas, each backed up with a couple of stories and examples. For the person just wanting to learn some basic techniques to make their writing appeal to more audiences, The Art of Writing would be a good place to begin. Disclaimer: I received this book in exchange for an honest review of the work.

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In Preparation for the Baseball Season: Book reviews

Yankee Stadium, 2015

It looks like we’ll have a baseball season this year. Why are there so many good baseball books? I don’t know of any other sport who produces as many good writers as baseball. In anticipation of the season, I listened to Robert Creamer’s Baseball in ’41, which I’m reviewing below. I’m also attaching a review of another baseball book I read several years ago by the famed Presidential historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin. And, for those who want to ponder baseball and religion, here’s a link to my review of Baseball as a Road to God, written by John Sexton.

Robert W. Creamer, Baseball in ’41: A Celebration of the Best Baseball Season Ever in the Year America Went to War 

(1991: Audible 2005) Read by Tom Parker. 8 hours 46 minutes.

This book is part memoir, part baseball history, and part history of America on the eve of World War II. The author, Robert Creamer, was a nineteenth-year college student between his two “first years” of college (he admits having to redo his freshman year). While war talk is in the air, the great advances of the German army of ’39 and ’40 seemed stalled after they had conquered Western Europe. That would change late in the summer when German attacked the Soviet Union. America was trying to stay neutral while arming Great Britain. And it was the year that a young Ted Williams hit .406 and Joe DiMaggio hit in 56 concessive games.

The draft of young men for the military resumed. Draftees had a year enlistment. Some in baseball made the case for those drafted (it wasn’t a large draft in ’41), to join so that they would only miss one season instead of straddling two seasons. The draft included one of baseball’s all-time great players, Detroit’s Hank Greenburg. He entered the military with much fanfare and missed the season. At the end of the year, he had fulfilled his commitment and released from duty two days before Pearl Harbor. He would rejoin the military two days later. Greenburg missed four and a half seasons at the peak of his career, which probably is why he is not as well-known as other players of the era or before.  

While no one was sure when the United States would join the war, many felt it just a matter of time. This summer, one major league game paused as President Roosevelt addressed the nation about the need to be prepared. His address played over the stadium’s PA system, after which the game resumed. Of course, the next year things would change after Pearl Harbor. Many of baseball greats either joined or found themselves drafted into the military. ’41 was the last year in which the majors consisted of most of its big names. Even Williams and DiMaggio went off to war. 

In 1941, the Yankees redeemed themselves from their failure of the year before. They faced some challenges early in the season, especially from Cleveland and their ace, Bobbie Feller (later known as Bob Feller). But the Yankees won the pennant earlier than ever. Instead, the America League excitement came from Williams and DiMaggio’s hitting. In the National League, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Brooklyn Dodgers remained in a head-to-head race throughout the season. The National League pennant was decided in the closing days of the season. St. Louis with their extensive farm teams could call up new players when others were hurt, something they dealt with a lot in ’41. Leo Durocher’s Dodgers, a historically second division team (the bottom 4 teams of an 8-team league), were finally playing well and no longer worthy of their nickname, “the bums.” However, in the World Series, the Yankees easily beat the Dodgers in five games. 

As he weaves in throughout the book, 1941 was not only a season of change for baseball. The author went through a change as his older brother signed up for the Army Air Corp. The next year, he, too, would be in the military. He would later become a correspondent for Sport’s Illustrated and go on to write many baseball books including biographies of Babe Ruth and Casey Stengel. Creamer claimed to be a Yankee fan in ’41, and it seems that his interest in baseball continued to follow that path. 

Detroit, 2010

Doris Kearns Goodwin, Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir 

(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 261 pages, some photos.

Goodwin, a renowned historian and author of many presidential biographies, recalls her childhood fascination with the Brooklyn Dodgers in this delightful memoir.  The Dodgers were referred to as bums, as it seemed they would never win a World Series.  In the forties and fifties, they were a National League powerhouse, often winning the pennant, but losing in the Series.  They were “always the bridesmaid, never the bride.”  Against this backdrop is a young girl whose father taught her how to keep score.  As she became better at scoring, she would listen to the afternoon game and then retell the events of the game to her father when he came home from his job as a bank examiner.  She credits baseball with making her a historian and storyteller as she learns to build suspense in recalling the events of the game.    

As Goodwin recalls each season in which the Dodgers disappoint them again, she shares memories of growing up in her Brooklyn neighborhood as well as events happening in the country and around the world.  She lived by two calendars: one from church and the other from baseball.  She tells many humorous stories such as making her confession before her first communion.  It has been impressed upon her how serious this is and to think hard about her sins.  She realizes she has been wishing bad things upon others, such as wanting a certain Yankee player to break an arm or a Phillies ball player to experience some other kind of misfortune. As she confesses, the priest’s giggles and admits that he too is a Dodger fan. Then, he uses the occasion to teach a lesson, asking how she’d feel if the only way the Dodgers win the Series is that all the other players are injured. Another story involved Old Mary, who lived in a dilapidated house. The neighborhood children were sure she was a witch and set out spying on her. When Goodwin’s mother learns of how they have been treating Mary, she takes her daughter down to meet the old woman who was from the Ukraine and had learned only broken English. A few months after meeting this nice but lonely woman, she dies. 

Goodwin enjoyed school, especially literature and geography. She even had a teacher who required them to learn the main towns along the Trans-Siberia, Trans-Mongolian, and Trans-Manchurian railroads, along with the Baikula-Amur line. However, I’m not so sure about the Baikula-Amur line, a Siberian railway that runs north of Lake Baikal, as most of the work on it was twenty-plus years after Goodwin had finished school. 

In addition to what was happening locally, Goodwin reflects on the national events. The fifties were the waning years of segregation, and she pays attention to the events at Little Rock. She ponders over the Rosenberg’s children after their execution and worries over the Soviet’s exploding an atomic bomb. She goes out and searches for the first satellite launched by the Soviets.  All this is recalled as Goodwin recaps each season. The book comes to a climax in 1956, when the Dodger’s beats the Yankees for their first World Series win. She and her parents celebrated in downtown Brooklyn. But with the win comes losses. Goodwin’s childhood friend moves away, a trend that will happen repeatedly with the affluence of the 50s. She becomes interested in boys. Then her mother dies and her father, who is heartbroken, decides to sell the only house she’s ever known. Then the final straw breaks in 1957, as the Brooklyn Dodgers (along with the hated Giants) announce they will relocate to the West Coast. The magic of childhood has passed her by.  

In the Epilogue, Goodwin writes about how she again fell in love with baseball as a graduate student at Harvard. This time it was with the Boston Red Sox, a team who (at the time of the writing of her memoir) was a lot like the old Dodgers.  Although they often had good teams, they were unable to win the Series. Goodwin, like her father before her, has the pleasure to introduce her children to the magic of the game.  Goodwin is a wonderful storyteller and has an eye for history (with perhaps the exception of Russian railroads). I enjoyed this read 

PNC Park looking back on Pittsburgh, 2012
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Red Famine (some background on the conflict between Ukraine and Russia)

Anne Applebaum, Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine (2017), 17 hours and 46 minutes

I read reviews of this book when it first came out. It looked intriguing, but I never got around to read it. When Russia invaded Ukraine, I decided I needed to read something to get myself up to speed on what is happening in the world. I have often appreciated Applebaum’s insights on talk shows, so I tried to find this book. Guess what, there were no hard copies immediately available, so I got an audible copy and listened to the book. I am glad that I did and recommend this book as a helpful way to understand more of what’s going on in Ukraine. If you only read the introduction and epilogue, you’ll have a much better understanding of what’s happening. 

The word Ukraine means borderland. While much of its history is that of a colony (of Poland, Imperial Russia, the Austrian/Hungarian Empire, and the Soviet Union), it has a distinct language and culture separate from each of these. Applebaum provides a brief history of the region prior to the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, but her story really begins with the defeat of the Czar and the rise of the Bolsheviks. The defeat of the Czar and the rise of the Soviet state might best be understood through a line from the song “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” by “The Who.” “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” 

When Russia fell to the Bolsheviks and pulled out of the Great War, Ukraine was able to press its own identity and for a few short periods, became independent. However, independence was short-lived as the country constantly being overrun. Twice by the Bolsheviks conquered Kiev, along with the German/Austrian/Hungarian army and both the White and Black armies who fought the Bolshevik. The region value came from the grain produced in its fertile ground.  After it finally arrived within the Soviet sphere (Ukraine had its own communist leaders, who didn’t always go along with Moscow), the country primarily became as a place for grain to feed the Soviet rising industry. 

The first demands and confiscation of grain occurred during this time as Lenin saw Ukraine as a source for feeding the masses in the more industrial regions of Russia. Following the Revolution and the fights against White Russians, along with a drought in 1921, the young Soviet Union needed grain. They demanded it from Ukraine, even though she had suffered under the same circumstances. Interestingly, when the America Relief Association under the work of Herbert Hoover brought food to Russia, the were discouraged from working in the Ukraine. 

Like Czarist Russia before them, the Bolsheviks were troubled by any nationalist ideology in Ukraine and continued the policies of insisting on the use of Russia while they stamped out Ukrainian identity. At times, they would give nod to the Ukrainian unique situation and loosen up a bit, but they made it clear that Moscow was in control. Compounding the problem with the Soviets in the Ukraine was how to deal with the peasants, as Marxist ideology had no real understanding of such a class of people.

At first, the Soviets sought to voluntarily collectivize the farms, but with few wanting to join such farms, the Soviets put more and more pressure on peasants to collectivize. The nation’s “five-year plans” required the region provide and outrageous amount of grain. With the resentments toward collectivization and no incentive to work harder, these “goals” became unrealistic. The central state began to demand the region turn over more and more grain (even seed grain), which led to the terrible famine (known as the Holodomor, which combines the words for hunger and extermination) that occurred in 1932-33. Other policies such as blacklisting some villages and collective farms, exasperated the situation. The situation became dire as starving people were unable even to work the fields. As Applebaum describes the growing famine, she also provides detail on how starvation effects the body. Such details are horrific. As the famine grew more severe, people even began to eat the dead.  Sadly, there were no American Relief committees in the 1930s and an estimated 3.9 million people in the Ukraine died. While there was starvation in other parts of the Soviet Union during this time, no area suffered as much as Ukraine.

To collect more grain for the Soviet Union, they forced everyone onto collective farms and began to use propaganda. The Soviets created tension and hatred between groups. They even created a special class of peasants, the Kulacks. At first, Kulacks were large landowners, but later included anyone against the collectivization efforts or those seen as enemies of the state. 

After the famine, with not nearly enough workers to harvest the grain, the Soviets began to move even more Russian speaking people into the Ukraine. Among these included a young Nikta Khrushchev, who first worked in the Donbas region of Ukraine. In the purges of the late 1930s, they eliminated almost all the Ukrainian communists and replaced them with “Russians.” The famine, as terrible as it was, helped the Soviets control the Ukraine. This helps explain why many in the Ukraine were willing to, at first, go along with the Nazi invasion in 1941. This legacy is seen today with Russia (or Putin) referring to Ukraine as “Nazis.” Applebaum wrote between the Crimean War and this latest conflict. Applebaum is almost prophetic as Putin has declares his invasion to be an anti-Nazi campaign). Despite such terms, Applebaum points out how all sides (Czar, Soviets, and Ukrainians) had antisemitic tendencies. 

This book has several takeaways. First, in relation to current world politics, it is easy to see Putin as a continuation of Russian views of the Ukraine (which started with the Czars and continued through the Soviets). Russia viewed Ukraine as its bread basket. Beyond that, the Russians looked down on Ukraine as second class. The reader also comes to understand the tension between Russia and Ukraine because of different languages. Ukraine’s cultural leaders (writers and such) has sought to bring the country more aligned with the West, while Russia wants them to be aligned with the East. However, after the terrible things done to the Ukrainians in the 1930s, it is no wonder the people of the country are willing to fight to the death to avoid returning to their previous subjugation. Furthermore, during the Soviet era, information about the famine was constantly covered up and denied (just as it’s against the law now in Russia to speak of the invasion of and war in Ukraine as anything other than a special military action).

In addition to understanding the regional conflict (which could become a worldwide conflict), we should also take seriously Applebaum’s insights into the Russian propaganda campaigns of the 30s. In these campaigns, groups of people were seen as undesirable and as unimportant. Essentially robbed of their humanity, everyone lost their moral compass and allowed the needless deaths of millions. The warning: we must be careful of how we refer to those seen as “the other.” 

While she doesn’t see the famine as genocide only because the tight legal definition of the word is due to the Soviet’s influence at the United Nation. Soviet policies caused the famine and while they did not try to kill all Ukrainians, they did want to destroy such identity for the people there. Moscow used the famine to dominate Ukraine and continued to discourage Ukrainian identity until after the end of the Soviet Union. In the epilogue, Applebaum credits Ukraine (and Chernobyl) as the catalysis leading up to the end of the Soviet state. When the truth about Chernobyl began to be known, it opened a pandora’s box that the Soviets could not close. Perhaps this is another reason why Putin is so out to get Ukraine, as its people helped bring about the demise of the Soviet Union, which he’d like to reestablish. 

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Two Books about Mark Twain

I recently read Heretical Fictions, which I am reviewing here. I am also reposting another review that I wrote seven years ago on Mark Twain and Orion Clemens, which looked at the relationship between Twain and his older brother. That review will enlighten us on the first review. I hope to soon find a way to post an article I wrote for the Nevada Historical Society Quarterly in the 1990s. “Of Humor, Deaths, and Ministers: The Comstock of Mark Twain” is about Twain’s relationship to clergy when he lived in Nevada in the early 1860s. While I could post it through individual images (PDFs), I would like to find my original copy so that the document could be searchable. Now, for my two reviews:  

Lawrence I. Berkove and Joseph Csicsila, Heretical Fictions: Religion in the Literature of Mark Twain (Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 2010), 271 pages including index, bibliography, and endnotes. No photos.

Edgar Lee Masters once said, “Twain threw out the Bible, but it seemed to be attached with a rubber band and was likely to bounce back in his lap at any time.” One finds constant allusions to Biblical stories in Twain’s writings. Perhaps, instead of trying to free himself from the Bible, Twain really wanted to free himself from the harsh Calvinism of his youth. But, as with the Bible, his faith kept bouncing back into his lap. 

Berkove and Csicsila challenges an older understanding of Twain. Many still see him as a humorist who became a bitter agnostic in his later years. Instead, these scholars explore a thread running through Twains work which displays his constant battle with the Calvinism of his youth. From his childhood faith, Twain continued to believe in God, and accepted two of the three major Calvinist views of God. Twain understood God to be omnipotent and omniscient. Where he departs from the Calvinism of his youth is that he didn’t accept the idea of a benevolent God. 

Twain develops a “counter theology” which the authors highlight in nine points: 

  1. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and malevolent. 
  2. Existence is a fleeting and transient, a dream within the mind of God making the world unreal and an illusion (this comes out especially in No. 44: The Mysterious Stranger and influenced by the writings of William James). 
  3. The consequence of original sin is God’s “Primal Curse.” Humans are enabled to do wrong.
  4. Humanity is not just flawed by original sin. We are corrupted by it.
  5. Virtuous deeds cannot save us for the balance sheet between our good and bad deeds are always going to be stacked against us.
  6. Everything is predestined.
  7. Most of humanity are reprobates, predestined for eternal punishment.
  8. Because God is perfect, there is no possibility God will change his mind.
  9. Conscience is from God, but affected by religious instruction and warns us when going astray. 

While Twain accepts these principles, he views them as “arbitrary, unfair, deceptive, and cruel.”  (see pages 15-17)

To make their case, the authors examine five of Twain’s novels (Roughing It, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger) along with several of Twain’s shorter writings in his last decade. 

I have read all the novels but one (most of these novels I’ve read several times). I’ve also read many of the reviewed short stories. I confess that the chapter on No. 44: The Mysterious Stanger, was the most difficult for me which had to do with having not read that book and not having a frame of reference.  

In Roughing It, the book of which I probably know best of Twain’s writings because of my own work on the role of the church in Nevada during the 19th Century, Twain explores the concept of getting rich without working hard (a desire that he humorously relates to in his own life). We’ve been cursed since the garden to toil for our bread, but we don’t like it! Although Twain wants his readers to laugh and enjoy the book, he layers them such that they each explore a different theme. Tom Sawyer attempts to find freedom before deciding to become a respectable part of society, but is that society respectable and pure?  Huckleberry Finn and Jim, long for freedom, only to learn it’s not obtainable.  Hank Monk in A Connecticut Yankee, explores things such as get rich schemes within the stock market (something Twain had seen in Nevada). Other themes include pride (Monk’s knowledge of the future allows him to become God-like in the ancient world), and human damnation (people act the same back then as in the 19th Century, look out for themselves). Twain cleverly uses an allusion to a card game throughout the story, but in the end the reader learns it’s all a dream. This dream motif occurs in many of Twain’s later stories which the authors link to Twain’s study of the writings of William James.  


While Berkove and Csicsila stick to Twain’s work and his theology to make their points, I found myself often wondering about events in Twain’s own life. The tragedies he experienced from the death of his younger brother Henry on a steamboat that blew up on the Mississippi (an event Twain felt somewhat responsible for), the death of his niece in Nevada from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and the deaths of some of his own children and his wife, all haunted the author. I wondered if some of Twain’s more cynical writings about God might be his attempt at a lament as seen in the Psalms. In such writings, the author of the Psalms becomes angry with God, but never abandons God.  Another life event would be Twain’s relationship to his brother. Early on, Orion was far more religious than Twain, even serving as an Elder for the Presbyterian Church in Carson City and helping organize a church in the mining camp of Meadows Lake, California. However, after his daughter’s death and other hardships, he gave up religion and became an atheist. 

I appreciate how Berkove and Csicsila have highlighted Twain’s lifelong interest in God and theology. While I enjoyed this book, I would only recommend it to those familiar with a large body of Twain’s writings. 

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Philip Ashley Fanning, Mark Twain and Orion Clemens: Brothers, Partners, Strangers (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama, 2003), 268 pages, no photos or maps

In much of Mark Twain’s writings, his older brother Orion comes across as a bumbling idiot. Was he?  Orion led and supported the Clemens family from an early age when their father died.  He also held a responsible position in the Nevada Territory, the territorial secretary, a political appointment he earned for his support of the Republican Party in the 1860 election.  Like his younger brother, who became Mark Twain, Orion desired wealth, but he was known to be a man of principle and stuck to his principles even when they led to financial shortcomings and failures.   Philip Ashely Fanning examines the relationship between these two brothers, who were similar in some ways, yet very different.

Orion was ten years older than Samuel Clemens, so when their father died, he became the patriarch of the family.  He worked in various positions along the towns of the Mississippi, as a newspaper man, a printer and occasionally as an attorney.  At a young age when Sam quit school, he went to work for his brother.  This arrangement didn’t work well.  One of the stories told is that Orion decided there were too many stray cats hanging around the print shop and had Sam collect them in a sack and drown them, something that bothered the younger brother who always had a soft spot for cats.  In 1852, Sam quits and heads out on a trip though New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC, funded by working in various print shops and newspapers along the way.  He occasionally wrote articles that appeared in his brother’s newspaper. During this time, Orion broke with the family and became convinced that slavery was evil.  This led to him becoming a Republican and working for the party in the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln.

 Coming back from his trip east, Samuel Clemens continues to work in print shops and for newspapers, until he concocts a plan to go to South America.  On his way down the Mississippi, to New Orleans, he changes direction and accepts an offer to “learn the river.”  In 1858, Sam became a riverboat pilot, an occupation that paid more than the Vice President of the United States.  At this stage, the younger Clemens usurps his other brother’s position as the family patriarch.  After the Republican victory in 1860 and the beginning of the Civil War, their role reverses with Orion being offered a political position in Nevada as Sam finds him out of work.  The two of them head west, with Sam bankrolling the trip from his savings.  Later, when Sam (now known as Mark Twain) begins to write an account of his western adventures, he depends heavily on his brother’s journals to reconstruct (in a humorous manner) the stage trip across the country.  This account was published in his second book, Roughing It.  In Nevada, the brothers parted ways for a period.  Twain’s practical jokes and attempts at humor created problems for his brother and sister-in-law.  Sam headed to California and then to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) while Orion headed back to the Midwest.  

Over the next couple of decades, Orion found himself having to depend on his younger brother’s generosity both for money and positions.  Orion, who was always honest, finds himself excommunicated from his church after having expressed his beliefs.  At Sam’s encouragement, he beings to write an autobiography.  Sam begins to insist on rewrites as a way to protect his own self-constructed myth.  Orion seems to have compiled, even though much of the autobiography has been lost (and may have been burned by Twain or lost by his biographer).

Fanning presents some interesting ideas concerning how Twain related to his older brother.  He offers some interesting possibilities concerning the brothers’ father’s death, suggests that after Twain had thoughts about killing his brother, and that Orion’s time in Nevada was much more successful than Twain would later acknowledge (he was often the acting governor and as such helped settle a border dispute with California).  He also demonstrates how the younger brother encouraged his older brother to go into the ministry, even though later in life Orion would find himself excommunicated because of his unorthodox beliefs 

Although Fanning’s book raises a lot of questions concerning the two brother’s relationship, he also helps redeem Orion for the “bumbling idiot” characterization in which he’s often been portrayed.  Unfortunately, due to loss of material (especially that which was written by Orion) and the inability to know what’s happening inside the mind of another, we will never be able to really know for sure if some of Fanning’s ideas are correct, but it is safe to assume that Orion needs to be assessed in a different light.  This, Fanning does, while also showing how Twain, a wonderful author, had a mean streak and was not above throwing his brother under the bus in order to make himself look better.

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Learning more about Russia

Our Frightening World

Dining on the train

We’re living in a scary time with what is going on in Ukraine and Putin’s disregard for the rule of law as he orders Russia to invade a sovereign nation. In 2011, I took the Trans-Mongolian railroad from Beijing to Moscow and then an elegant overnight train on to St. Petersburg. It was a wonderful trip and a few years later I read Colin Turbon’s book (which I’m reviewing below). The photos in his post came from that trip. I found the Russian people to be warm and welcoming. But sadly, the country has a long history of corrupt leadership (from the Czars to the Soviets, and now with Putin). While it would be wonderful for Putin’s army to be humiliated in his Ukrainian operation and order restored, we must remember that those who will suffer are the Ukrainian people and the Russian soldiers, many who are conscripted into the military. 

Notice the km marker indicating the distance A Rfrom Moscow

When I was in college, I took a class focusing on Russian history. Sadly, most of those books I read focused on the attempts to modernize (or westernize) the country by Peter the Great, the 1917 Revolution, and Stalin. I should attempt to update my knowledge. I found a wonderful Twitter trend by an London bookseller (who is from Eastern Europe) on books to learn more about both Ukraine and Russia. Click here to read through the thread. Who would like to join me in learning more? 

A Russian rail yard

Colin Thuborn, In Siberia

 (1999, HarperCollins ebook, 2009), 270 pages

During the Soviet era, much of Siberia was closed off from the West. The Soviets utilized this vast area (which contains nearly a fifth of the world’s landmass) as the Czars had earlier. Siberia existed as place of exile of criminals and political prisoners. During the Second World War, industry began to develop in Siberia. The remote lands were far from the reach of Hitler’s tanks. The land is blessed with resources including minerals, oil, timber, wheat and cursed with hardship. The coldest temperatures ever recorded in inhabited place was in Siberia. After the breakup of the Soviet Union and two years after the end of collective farming, Colin Thubron set out to explore this region. Thubron, an Englishman, was familiar with Russia, having spent time there during the Cold War and having written on the nation. In his travels, he takes the Trans-Siberian Railroad as well as the BAM (Baikal-Amur Railroad), a line that runs north of Lake Baikal, and a steamer up the Yenisei River to the arctic. In the East, he flies to remote locations. In all, he covers the region from the Urals to the Pacific, from the “Altai Republic” along the Mongolian border to Dudinka, beside the frozen waters of the Arctic.  

Sunset over Lake Baikal

Siberia, Thubron writes was “born out of optimism and dissent.” (22)  Starting in the 1750s, Siberia became a place to exile criminals (just as Britain exiled its criminals to Australia) and although the number of criminals outnumbered the political prisoners, the later served as a “leavening intelligentsia” for the region. (162) Ironically, Siberia with its vastness became a place of freedom. In the 18th Century, those who moved there had a saying, “God is high, and the czar is far off.” (22)  In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Siberia was a stronghold out for the White Russians who fought against the Bolsheviks. Thubron tells of a discussion in Irkutsk to build a statue to honor Admiral Kolchak, a leader of the White Russians who was shot by the Bolsheviks at Irkutsk and his body pushed below the ice. He doubts the monument will be built. However, in 2011, when I travelled across Siberia, I enjoyed a a beer brewed in Irkutsk named for the Admiral. If you can a statue, a beer seems like a fitting tribute. 

Traveling in the years after the breakup of the Soviet system and the end of state-sponsored atheism, Thubron was surprised to find religion so alive. “Russia’s atheist past seemed no more than an overcast day in the long Orthodox summer,” he noted. (56)  As he traveled, he witnessed new and renovated churches opening. At the dedication of a monastery outside of Omsk, he asked himself, “Why had this faith resurrected out of nothing, as if a guillotined head had been struck back on its body? Some vital artery had preserved it.” (59) Not only does he explore the resurgence in the Orthodox faith, (who seemed to be profiting from the ability to import and sell alcohol and cigarettes tax free (56), but also Buddhism among the Buryat (165ff), a dying Jewish settlement in Eastern Siberia (208ff), Russian Baptist (220f), Old Believers with their insistence of the correct way to cross themselves in prayers (175f), and even a few who were trying to revive traditional shamanistic practices (98ff). In each situation, he meets with religious leaders. One of the more interesting interviews was with an Orthodox priest in Irkutsk, whose father had been a communist and whose mother was a Christian. He told about how in the Army, he began to be convicted of his sin and came to God through his guilt. This priest feared a war between China and Russia and felt that America was a godless land (156-7).

But not all of Siberia is teaming with religious revival. Many of the people Thuborn spoke with felt their world collapse along with communism. One woman, sent to Siberia by Stalin,still refused to criticize the Communist Party. Toward the end of his journey, in northeastern Siberia, he visits Kolyma, the location of some of the deadliest camps. Being sent here was a death sentence. In the winter of 1932, whole camps (prisoners, dogs, and guards) froze to death. It is here that the coldest inhabit place on earth is at, where the temperature has dropped to -97.8 F, where one’s breath will free into crystals and twinkle onto the ground, a phenomenon known as the “whispering of the stars.” (254)  Yet, despite such harsh conditions, they produced nearly a third of the world’s gold in the 1930s. It is estimated that one life was lost for every kilogram of gold produced.  Over 2 million people died here. (251f) The condition of the camps horrified Thubron, who seems concern that the residents of Siberia accept the camps of the past without much thought.

Water tower from the days of steam engines

In his last collection of Stalin horror stories, Thuborn tells of the prison ship, the SS Dzhurma. This ship, according to Thubron, became lodged in ice in 1933 with 12000 prisoners on board. All the prisoners froze to death and half the guards went crazy, according to Thubron. This would also be the deadliest maritime disaster ever, in terms of life lost. When I read this, I thought it sounded like fodder for a horror story and I did some checking. From a couple sources on the internet, found that there are some questions of the validity of this tragedy. Two things don’t fit according to these sources. First, the Soviets purchased the Dzhurma two years later, in 1935. Second, it was only a little over 400 feet long, making it nearly impossible to have had 12,000 prisoners onboard. However, in 1939, another “death-ship,” the SS Indigirka sank with its human cargo trapped below deck. (256) 

I really enjoyed this book and wish I would have read it before traveling through Siberia. At that time, I read Ian Frazier’s excellent travelogue, Travels in Siberia. Thubron’s book is a little out of date, but it is also excellent. His writing is engaging and never boring as he weaves together a story about this vast and unknown landmass. I found reading this book on a e-reader both pleasant (it’s nice and light) and a little troublesome as I couldn’t easily flip back to the map at the beginning. Furthermore, the map didn’t show up well and found myself dragging out an atlas to locate places Thubron traveled. I recommend this book.  

Small village along the railroad tracks
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Two stories of mine and two related book reviews

Story 1:

Like a lot of kids, I don’t look back fondly on my Junior High. But the one exciting thing about those years occurred shortly after sundown, especially in the winter. I would wait with excitement as the sky darkened, turning on my receiver and listening as I prepared my transmitter which was tied into a long-wire diapole antenna. Soon, the 80-meter amateur radio band came to life. My headphones became clogged with the sound of morse code. Sometimes I would respond to a CQ (an invitation to chat by morse code) and make a new friend. Other times I would send my own CQ or join a network that was busy handing “traffic.” This was an exciting hour for a fourteen-year-old. Early in the evening, one might connect with someone in Europe or up and down the east coast. As the darkness moved further west, connections were more easily made to operators in the Midwest and, even later, on the West Coast. In high school, I lost the wonder of amateur radio and at some point, my license expired. Occasionally, I think back on those days and wonder if I should study up and renew my license. These two books that I review below helped rekindle such interest.

Story 2:

The first story I remember from a sermon came from Rev. Jessie Parks. He was the pastor of my home church from the time we moved to the Wilmington NC area until shortly after I turned 11. I remember the timing of his move as he had a son a few months older than me. For short time, we were in Boy Scouts together. I was probably ten when he gave this sermon. The story was about the radio operators on the high seas on that fateful night of April 14-15, 1912. I would later learn that Mr. Parks was also an amateur radio operator. I’m sure most ham operators know well the story of what happened that night when the Titanic sank. 

On my recent trip to Savannah and back, one of the books I listened was about the sinking of the Titanic from the perspective of two ships, the Carpathia and the Californian. Then, I listened to an Erik Larson story that wove together the early years of radio and that of a murder in London. Here are my reviews:  

Daniel Allen Butler, The Other Side of the Night: The Carpathia, the Californian and the Night the Titanic was Lost 

(2009, Audible, 2013), 9 hours and 29 minutes.  

Butler suggests the purpose of his book is to focus, not on the sinking of the Titanic, but on the other ships that were in the vicinity on the night of April 14-15, 1912. However, this isn’t new information as many of the details I had already known. After the sinking of the Titanic, there were major investigations, one in the United States and the other in Great Britain. All officers of the two nearby ships along with those officers and crew who survived the sinking were interviewed by these two investigations. What Butler does is to provide more insight into the lives of the development of the transatlantic shipping in the early years of the century, the captains of the two ships, the details of what happened that night from the perspective of the two ships, and report on the inquiries in the aftermath of the accident. Furthermore, he provides an interesting overview of how radio operated in the early days of wireless, which I found most interesting.

Wireless radio in 1912 was under the control of the Marconi company. The operators on the ships didn’t work for the shipping company, but for Marconi. He trained the operators, assigned them to the ships, and paid them. While onboard, the captain of the ship had authority over the operators, but he didn’t control them as he did rest of the crew onboard ship. Most ships had only one operator, although the larger liners like the Titanic had two. Part of the reason for the additional operator was that by 1912, Marconi’s company had found a profitable niche in sending telegraphs from the passengers of ships in the mid-Atlantic. As evening settled in on April 14th, the Titanic’s operators were busy sending such messages. Therefore, when the Californian operator contacted nearby ships to warn of ice, the Titanic’s operators were busy sending messages of good will from their passengers. His response was rather curt as he told the Californian not to interrupt their traffic. The Californian’s captain, Stanley Lord, decided it was unsafe to continue moving through the ice field in the dark. He had his ship stopped for the night and the radio operator, as there was only one onboard, went to bed. The captain also went to bed. A few minutes later, the Titanic struck the fatal iceberg. 

Knowing his ship was in danger, Captain Smith of the Titanic soon had his operators sending out a distress single. The Carpathia, which was fifty-eight miles away, responded and quickly changed course. Arthur Rostron, its captain, immediately began making plans as to how he might best respond. He had the confidence of his crew and pushed the ship to a speed beyond what was thought capable. While in transit, they readied lifeboats, prepared places inside the ship to receive passengers and to provide medical care, and prepared food. However, when he learned how fast the Titanic was sinking, he knew he could never reach the ship in time.

Throughout the night, until the lights went out, the Titanic’s operators stayed at their station hoping to awaken a closer ship who might be able to arrive in time to save the passengers and crew. The Titanic also shot up flares, some which were seen by the Californian, which was probably around 5 nautical miles from the disaster. The officers on the Californian reported such sights to their sleeping captain. The Californian tried to respond to the Titanic by morse code using lights but was probably too far away and received no response. There was even discussion on the ship as to whether the flairs were “company signals” or “distress signals.” Captain Lord never left his bunk to examine the situation. Nor did he wake the radio operator so that he might learn what was happening. 

Early the next morning, around two hours after the Titanic disappeared (those on the Californian through the ship had sailed off and didn’t even realize it was the Titanic), the Carpathia arrived and began to collect those in life rafts. 

Butler tells this story in an engaging manner. He rightly praises the work of Rostron and the Carpathia. And, as has many before him, he condemned the actions of Captain Lord. However, he goes beyond condemning the inaction of Lord, by psychologically diagnosing him. He also condemned the supporters of Mr. Lord. This, I thought, went to far. A historian is in no position to psychologically evaluate someone long dead and I’m not sure who, today, are Mr. Lord’s supporters. To me, attacking Lord’s supporters was to create a straw man to beat up. Nonetheless, I enjoyed his telling of the story of the Titanic from the perspectives of those on the seas that evening. 

Erik Larson, Thunderstruck

 (2006, Audible 2006), 11 hours and 56 minutes.

Like many readers, my first exposure to the writings of Erik Larson was through The Devil in the White City. In that book, Larson tells the story of one of nation’s first serial murderers and the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. In Thunderstruck, Larson weaves together the story of a murder that occurred in London in early in the 20th Century with the story of Marconi’s development of the wireless radio. 

Hawley Crippen was a homeopathic physician from Michigan who worked in the patent medicine business. He spent much of his life in London. He married a woman who saw herself as an opera star. After failing to break into such trade in the United States, she tried and failed to make a name for herself in the London.  The portrait Larson creates of Crippen’s wife, Cora, who went by her stage name, Belle,” is less than flattering. She was never satisfied. She nearly bankrupted her husband with her shopping sprees. She had several affairs. To most people, Crippen doted on her and did what he could to make her happy. Then, he hired a new typist, Ethel, whom he fell for and with whom he had an affair.

In early 1910, Cora went missing. Crippen said she’d gone to the United States and later said she’d died in California. But some friends of Cora questioned this and brought her disappearance to the attention of Scotland Yard. Knowing he was under investigation, Crippen and Ethel fled to Europe and then to Quebec. Ethel was disguised as a young boy. But the officers of the ship were on the lookout and the captain became suspicious. Using the radio, he contacted authorities. Scotland Yard sent an investigator to Canada on a faster ship, which beat Crippen’s ship and allowed him to make an arrest with the help of Quebec authorities. This high seas chase became the headline in newspapers. Everyone except those on Crippen’s ship, knew what was happening because of radio. Crippen, who was always known as a gentleman, was hanged for this crime. Ethel was tried as an accessory but was found not guilty. 

The Crippen story is broken up by the story of Marconi and the development of wireless radio. In the 1890s, there were great interest in an ability to send messages through the “ether.” While some of this was through scientific means, others sought to do such through magic or the occult. Marconi was the one who figured out how to send wireless over a long distance. But his is not the rags to riches story. His father was a wealthy businessman in Italy and his mother was from the Jameson distilling family of Ireland. It was the Jameson family who helped pull together backers to support Marconi as he began wireless operations that eventually crossed the Atlantic. But there were lots of issues to overcome. Even once it was shown as possible, there were legal challenges from cable companies who saw wireless as an unfair competitor. There were issues of isolating the signal to a particular frequency.  For some reason that was only later understood, wireless worked best at night (as I experienced as a 14-year-old kid in the longer frequency bands). Larson weaves all this together into a compelling story. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. 

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Book Reviews: Theology, Memoir, & Devotion

I’m reading a lot in this new year but am way behind on my book reviews (but then I never review all the books I read. Here is one I finished in late December, one I finished in January, and a third finished in February: 

Makota Fujimura, Art and Faith: A Theology of Making 

(New Haven, Yale, 2021), 167 pages including index and notes.  

In this book, Japanese-American artist Makota Fujimura provides an insight into his theology grounded in a belief in an all-sufficient God who created us to create. I find hope in the idea that God created us to create. His theology challenges the utilitarian views from the industrial revolution (and Darwin). While we often think of art as not being practical, he suggests that beauty and mercy (two components of art) draws us into the sacred and is necessary for the gospel to change the world. While beauty and mercy might not be in the hierarchy of the Old Creation, it invokes the New (28). 

Fujimura critiques a common belief that God is there to “fix things”, labeling such an idea as “plumbing theology.” While he agrees that at time things need to be fixed, it’s not the whole message of the gospel. Fujimura’s theology is built around the idea that God is all sufficient, yet choses to delights in us. God calls us to participate in the creation of beauty. The essential questions, according to Fujimura, isn’t whether we are religious, but whether we are making something. He even encourages us in church to ask, “what did you make this week?” (62). 

The author draws heavily on creative authors, poets, and theologians. He reminds us of Emily Dickinson’s referring to Jesus as the Tender Pioneer. A sample of others quoted include N. T. Wright, C. S. Lewis, Thomas Aquinas, Wendell Berry, philosopher Daniel N. Robinson, and William Blake. While he refers to Scripture frequently, he is especially fond of the Gospel of John and ends with detailed commentary on stories of Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus. He also draws heavily on the image of the wedding between Christ and the Church, which should remind us that our future hope isn’t in “the end,” but in a new beginning (83-4).

Kintsugi, a form of Japanese art that repairs the pottery of a broken tea service to create a more valuable and beautiful piece serves as a metaphor for Fujimura. Christ doesn’t just “fix us,” but restores us to a new creation. As a part of the new creation, we are to be creating, regardless of what we do. 

Often Fujimura slips in humor. Writing about refusing God’s gift, he reminds us that “we are not just rejecting a vacuum cleaner that is advertised as guaranteed to clean our hearts of sin; we are rejecting the Father love of God.” 69

I enjoyed reading this book. Fujimura gives the reader a lot to ponder and makes me now ask myself, “what did I make today?” That’s not a bad question for us to ask before nodding off to sleep.

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Gregory Orr, The Blessing: A Memoir

 

(2002, Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2019), 221 pages. 

Last year I learned of Gregory Orr through his book on reading and writing poetry. I enjoyed it so, that I picked up one of his many books of poetry. Still intrigued, I checked out this memoir. 

Orr tells the story of his first eighteen years through a series of short vignettes. The chapters tend to be short, some only a few hundred words. Through the telling of these stories, the author gradually reveals what drew him into art and especially poetry. 

Reading the story of his young life, I found myself amazed that he survived. When the author was 12, he accidently shot and killed his younger brother in a hunting accident. We later learn (as he later learned), his father had also accidently killed a friend after they had “borrowed” a 22 rifle and was using it to “skeet shoot” paper plates. Obviously, such trauma continues to influence the author. But there were more bumps along the road. His father, a physician, supposedly to save the family, took them all to Haiti in the early 60s. There, he worked in a clinic where, following a simple surgery, his mother died of an infection. Afterwards, his father married a much younger woman to whom he had had an affair before moving to Haiti. His father, who seemed to be a devoted doctor who worked ungodly hours in rural New York, lived on amphetamines. He even gave an industrial size jar of such tablets to his son when he dropped him off at college. The memoir ends after Orr’s first year of college, when he headed South as part of the Freedom Riders who worked for Civil Rights. He was young and naïve and twice found himself in a dangerous situation which required his rescue by his father’s friend, an attorney. 

It doesn’t appear Orr and his family were very religious. Orr recalls they occasionally attended a Dutch Reformed Church. However, this book is steeped in Biblical metaphors, especially around the accidental death of his brother. Orr sees himself as Cain, who after killing his brother Abel is protected by God. He too feels protected (even the investigating officer said it was an accident and doesn’t handcuff him). But he also feels guilty and unable to deal with the guilt. Later, as he writes this book, he learns of the guilt his brother had over the killing. His brother had not prepared for a test and prayed there would be a way he could avoid taking it. He, too, carried guilt, as he found the answer to his prayer (not having to take the test that day) to be horrific.

As a memoir, this book doesn’t contain everything about the author’s early life. While he mentions becoming involved with the Civil Rights movement, I found myself looking for a stronger link as to why he decided to spend a summer in Mississippi and Alabama. However, that doesn’t distract much from what I consider an excellent memoir. 

This is a fast book to read. I started it one night and finished it the next afternoon. I do recommend this book and before I preach on Genesis 4 again (the story of Cain and Abel), I will reread much of this book. 

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Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers

 (Wheaton, IL: Crossways, 2020), 224 pages.  

I picked up this book on the recommendation of a good friend. Ortlund acknowledges that we spend a lot of time discussing and talking about what Christ has done for us, which is important. However, his goal is to go another direction and explore the heart of Christ. Using selections of scripture and readings of Puritan authors (such as Thomas Goodman), Ortlund creates 23 short chapters that explore Christ’s heart. The emphasis is on the love of God, a love that can break through our sin and failures to welcome us into Gods’ family. This book isn’t about fearing the wrath of God (although the author does mention that side of the divine) but a comforting book about a God who will go the extra mile to reach out to us in love. 

Not only does this book draws us into Scripture, but it also helps save Puritanism from the Perry Miller misunderstandings that has shed a dark cloud of the movement since the middle of the last century. Most people think of the Puritans as stern, people who seem overly worried that someone, somewhere is having fun. That’s not a fair representation and these chapters opens Puritanism to a new light.

This book would be an excellent read for a Bible Study group or each of the essays could be utilized as a short devotion.  

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Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr

As today is Martin Luther King, Jr. day (and a day of digging out of a heavy snow that had a layer of ice on top), I thought I would repost a review from a former blog of mine. This is a good biography of the first nine years of Dr. King’s professional life.

Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988)

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 (2006). 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 are credited in standing 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 is shown as inflexible, a man who 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 Right’s 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.

Another interesting aspect in this book is the role 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) as a way 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 in order 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 scene 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 Right’s movement, this book may be a bit much.

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Reading summary for 2021

Below is a list to books I read in 2021, along with links to books which I reviewed (Often, I reviewed several books in the same post, so you may have to look down to find the book in question). In 2021, I read 54 books. 41 were non-fiction, 8 were fiction, and 5 were books of poetry. 20 of the books I listed to on audible, the rest were read on paper. I reviewed 30 of the books. That’s one more book than 2020, and seven less reviews. To see my 2020 reading list, click here.

Last year I said I need to read more fiction and I read one more than 2020. Interestingly, when I looked at books by month, fiction often came out on top.

Here’s a breakdown of my non-fiction reading (Some books appear in more than one category).

History (Including Biographies). 13
Theology (Including devotions and commentaries). 16
Essays and Short Stories 8
Humor (I need to read more!) 4
Nature 6
Politics 3
Memoir 10
The Art of Writing 2

My reading list by month (with a photo of the book that I found most intriguing for each month):

January

Ronald W. Hall, The Carroll County Courthouse Tragedy (History)
Charles Simic, The Book of God and Devils: Poems (Poetry)
Lisa Deam, A World Transformed: Exploring the Spirituality of Medieval Maps (Theology, History)
Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (Theology, Politics, History, Audible)
David Sedaris, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls (Essays, Humor, Audible)
Amy Peterson, Where Goodness Still Grows: Reclaiming Virtue in an Age of Hypocrisy (Theology)

Hard to decide between Lopez and Nguyen!

February

Barry Lopez, About this Life (Memoir (Audible)
Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer (Fiction, Audible)
Anne Melyn Cassabaum, Down Along the Haw: The History of a North Carolina River (History, Geography) 
Charles Simic, The Book of Gods and Devils (poetry)
Sarah Arthur, Light Upon Light: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany  (Devotion)

March

Lisa Deam, 3000 Miles to Jesus: Pilgrimage as a way of Life for Spiritual Seekers (Theology, History)
Tilar J. Mazzero, The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It. (History, Creative Non-Fiction, Audible)
Nick Offerman, Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America’s Gutsiest Troublemaker  (Essays, “History,” Audible)
Thomas Long, Hebrews (Biblical Commentary)
Ron Rash, Among the Believers: Poems (Poetry)
Cormac McCarthy, Suttree (Fiction, Audible) 
Karen Cecil Smith: Orlean Puckett: The Life of a Mountain Midwife (History) 
Julie Salamon, Rambar’s Ladder: A Mediation on Generosity and Why It is Necessary to Give (theology)

April

Robin Wall Kimmer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (Nature, Memoir, Audible) 
Sarah Arthur, complier, Between Midnight and Dawn: A Literary Guide to Prayer for Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide (Devotion)
Barry Dickson, Maybe Today: Poems  (Poetry)
Garrison Keillor: That Time of the Year: A Minnesota Life (Memoir)

May

Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North  (Fiction, Audible)

Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible (Fiction, Audible)

June

Aaron McAlexander, Greasy Bend: Ode to a Mountain Road  (History, Essays)
Sinclair Lewis, It Can’t Happen Here  (Fiction, Politics, Audible)
Luke Timothy Johnson: Hebrews: A Commentary (Biblical Commentary) 

July

Gregory Orr, A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry (Writing)
Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot  (Nature, Essays, Audible) 
Erik Larson: Isaac’s Storm: A Man, A Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History (History, Audible) 
John Ketchmer, Sailing a Serious Ocean; Sailboats, Storms, Stories and Lessons Learned from 30 Years at Sea (Memoir, Audible) 
Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited (Theology, Race)
Casey Tygrett, As I Recall: Discovering the Place of Memories in our Spiritual Life (Writing)
Carl Hiassen, Tourist Season (Fiction, Humor, Audible) 
Robert Anderson, Daniel: Signs and Wonders, International Theological Commentary (Biblical Commentary)
Chet Raymo, The Soul of Night: An Astronomical Pilgrimage (Nature, Essays) 

August

Roger Kahn, The Boys of Summer (Non-fiction, Baseball, Biographies, Audible)
Christiane Tietz, Karl Barth: A Life in Conflict (Biography, theology)
Admiral Eugene Fluckey, Thunder Below:  The USS Barb Revolutionizes Submarine Warfare (History, Memoir, Audible)
Richard Lischer, Open Secrets: A Memoir of Faith and Discovery (Memoir) 
Alistair Begg, Brave by Faith: God -sized Confidence in a Post-Christian World (Biblical Commentary) 

September

Karl Marlantes, Matterhorn (Fiction, Audible) 
George Saunders, Civil War Land in Bad Decline (Essays, Humor, Audible)

October

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.2 The Doctrine of Reconciliation  (Theology) 

Terry Tempest Williams, The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks (Memoir, Nature, Audible) 

November

Anton Chekhov, The Complete Stories of Anton Chekhov, 1882-1885 (Short Stories, Audible)

Peter Wehner, The Death of Politics (Non-fiction, Political)

Philip Yancey, Where the Light Fell (Faith, Memoir, Audible) 

John Hassell Yeatts, A Long and Winding Road (History, Memoir, Stories)

Gregory Orr, River Inside the River: Poems (Poetry) 

December

Makoto Fujimura, Art of Faith: A Theology of Making (Theology).

Philip Conner, A Song for the River (Memoir, Nature, Audible) 

Anthony Everitt, Alexander the Great: His lLfe and His Mysterious Death (History, Audible) 

I have two of these books on my reading list again, for 2022. I listened to Jesus and John Wayne, but I have the paper copy and I would like to read it and then write a review. I also want to reread and then write a review of Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited.

What books did you read in 2021? What are your reading plans for 2022?

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