Tag: book review

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 19^th 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 19^th 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.

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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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.

John Hassell Yeatts, A Long and Winding Road 
(1989), 120 pages. 

The long and winding road referred to in the title is the Blue Ridge Parkway which divided the little community of Mayberry in the mid-1930s. This was at the time when the author was becoming a man. He began working at the Dan River dam project below Mayberry and his life’s work continues as he worked on dams around the country. He later attends college and goes on to work as a reporter and writer, as well as working with agencies such as the March of Dimes and American Cancer Association. In his later years, Yeatts came back to the Mayberry of his youth for the summers. He also published several books about the community. 

These are wonderful memories. The author grew up at a time when chestnut trees dominated the Appalachian Mountains, when most people travelled by horse or buggy, and when life was hard. He was present in the old Mayberry School, when Bob Childress called for the building of a church (now Mayberry Presbyterian Church). His father delivered mail for 35 years, mostly using horses. Later in his career, he’d use a Model T. In the days before UPS, his father had to have extra packhorses for the mail order packages from Sears and Roebuck and Montgomery Wards. Yeatts remembers a car salesman from Mount Airy introduce Ford’s Model T to the community and he travels to Stuart to meet those coming back from the First World War. There, for the first time in his life, he sees a locomotive, as the iron horse pulls the train into Stuart from the main line in Martinsville. He also remembers the lumbering of the chestnut and watching the trees hauled away as the blight killed the forest that dominated these parts. In these stories, we learn about old mills where farmers ground grain, and about his tee-totalling mother, who would have joined Carrie Nation if she had the opportunity. This book is filled with good stories, that take the reader back into a simple but difficult time to make a living on the mountains.

This book, along with the books of Aaron McAlexander, provide a colorful history of Mayberry. The difference in the two books is that Yeatts (who I’m sure is related to McAlexander), is a couple decades older and so his memories extend further back, to a time before the automobile, tractors, and tourists. In both books, the Mayberry store (which has gone by many names) is prominent. 

Gregory Orr, River Inside the River: Poems
(New York: Norton, 2013), 124 pages.

Last summer, when on study leave, I found myself engrossed in A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry by Gregory Orr. Having not read any of his poetry selections of the University of Virginia professor, I picked up this collection. This book has three major sections. The first, “Eden and After” looks at our first parents in the garden and its aftermath. In the second, “The City of Poetry,” I have a sense that Orr was describing the city of refuge in Genesis 4, where Cain fled upon the death of Able. As a child, Orr had killed his brother in a hunting accident. The final section is titled after the book’s title, “River Inside the River” While Orr explores new themes, he also continues building on themes already introduced.  Overall, I enjoyed the collection. I like his use of words and metaphors. My only complaint was his use of the “F” word. It certainly got my attention and was only used a few times. It was just a shock to read it in such a work, especially since he uses it to describe that which Adam and Eve did in the garden. But that word is just too harsh. Of course, Orr uses this word less than other books I’ve read. In Matterhorn, which is reviewed below, the word is used a lot but in a combat situation it seems more appropriate.

Philip Conners, A Song for a River, 
(Audible, 2018) 6 hours and 44 minutes.

This book was in my to-be-read pile for some time. When it showed up as a freebee for Audible subscribers, I jumped on it and enjoyed the book. Conners spent thirteen years as a fire lookout in the Gila Wilderness area in Southern New Mexico. I didn’t even know that there were still fire lookouts into the 21^st century! This book weaves together several tragedies: his own brother’s suicide, his divorce, the death of his friend John who was also a fire lookout, and the death of three students from Silver City who were killed in a plane crash, along with his own medical issues. Weaving into these deaths and his divorce are stories of fire in the oldest wilderness area in the United States (As a young forester, Aldo Leopold, author of A Sand County Almanac, had been instrumental in saving this land).  

Conner also experiences danger as a lookout. One fire sweep through the high country. Conner is saved by a helicopter sent in to rescue him. Throughout the book, we learn of larger and larger fires, that burn hotter and at higher altitudes from global warming. In addition to the danger of fire, Conner talks about risky river trips he makes in this part of the world. Toward the end of the book, we learn that Conner remarries.  While I enjoyed the book, I felt it was a bit disjointed. That said, I do plan to read his other books.

Karl Marlantes, Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War (Audible, 2010), 21 hours and 11 minutes.

Marlantes was a Marine officer in Vietnam, and this is his first novel. The story takes place in late 1968 and early 1969, as the narrator begins his deployment as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corp. Assigned to a company that’s securing a firebase close to the DMZ, the firebase is named Matterhorn. The young officer dreams of rising rapidly as he serves in combat, in the hopes he can return to law school and become a politician. But as he is thrown in with men who long to survive, he learns important lessons. The story centers around a decision by the top brass to abandon the base, only to then require the Marines to retake it, after the North Vietnamese have repurposed the base for their own purposes. This was nearly suicidal mission, but the mission is ultimately successful. Along the way, we learn of the men in his company, especially the issues around race. There is even a divide among the “black brothers,” between some who are sending back weapons to America to help in the fight against racism and others who just want to survive or to get high. We also learn about the problems that come from above, from officers trying to please politicians and making decisions that are almost impossible to carry out in the field. While this is a long story, it is well told and shows the horror of the war. 

Philip Yancey, Where the Light Fell: A Memoir (Random House Audio, 2021), unabridged, 11 hours, 17 minutes. 

Back in the late 1990s, I read several of Philip Yancey’s book. Twenty some years later, I find myself going back to his books for inspiration. This is especially true for What’s So Amazing About Grace? While Yancey often drew from personal stories, in this book he provides even more personal details of his childhood. Yancey was only a year old when his father died of polio. However, he was a college student, bringing home a date, when he accidentally learns the details of his father’s death. An iron lung kept his father alive, but he decided that instead he would trust God. Supported by all the people who were praying for him and against medical advice, he left the hospital. Sadly, it didn’t work out. Raised in poverty by his mother, he grew up not knowing the reasons behind his father’s death. 

Secrets and mysteries abound in Yancey’s childhood world. A bright student, he starts school a year early and skipped the second grade. Although three years younger, he was a year behind this older brother throughout school and college. The two brothers were raised in Southern fundamentalistic churches with a holiness strain. Although their mother came from Philadelphia, she too had been raised in a church that taught the “curse of Ham” (an interpretation of scripture that assigns those of color to subservient positions within society). The two brothers grow up believing the myth of the Lost Cause and of vengeful God. It’s a frightful time as the Civil Rights movement gains strength as unrest around the Vietnam War increases. In time, both brothers revolted against their childhood. As the book ends, the older brother is attending an atheistic church in California, while the younger has become a popular Christian author. 

From the beginning, the Yancey’s boys were their mother’s hope to fulfill her own dream of becoming a missionary to Africa. From an early age, she tells them the Biblical story of Hannah, who consecrated her son to the Lord and gave him to the priest, Eli, to raise him up in the temple (see 1 Samuel 1-3).  For Yancey, he admits this is his least favorite story in the Bible. The pressure upon these two boys, growing up in the church (at times even living on church property where their mother leads the Sunday School) was immense. 

While there is much to lament about Yancey’s childhood, he’s not bitter. “Nothing is wasted,” he acknowledges. He credits this upbringing for teaching him the importance of language and to develop a love of scripture. While he grew up with sermons mostly from Paul or the Old Testament, he learned enough about Jesus to dig deeper. He also appreciates the way the church of his youth was a family.  “Like a family, [church] is a cluster of dysfunctional people. As he fully understands the gospel story, Yancey discoverers grace and finds the strength to move into a deeper relationship with God and with all God’s children. 

Part of the credit for Yancey comes from his wife, who had grown up in a missionary home. The two found solace with each other. Married for 50 years, Yancey doesn’t say much about their life together. This memoir focuses on Yancey’s early years.  

Sadly, Yancey’s story doesn’t end in a fairy tale. His brother and his mother haven’t spoken in decades. Yancey has sought forgiveness from some whom he’s hurt, there are others with whom he’s not been able to reconcile. The president of his college (which he never mentions by name), remains upset over the stories he told while being a student there. But in other cases, such as with his high school nemeses, Hal, he’s able to develop a new friend. Even one of his childhood pastors, of whom he’d been critical, found himself moved by Yancey’s writings on grace. Looking back, he admits to wishing he had discovered grace much earlier in his ministry. 

Toward the end of the book, Yancey digs again into the story of Hannah, whom his mother had used to make him and brother feel guilty for not following her plan for their lives. He notes that it was not Hannah nor Eli that gave rise to Samuel. God called Samuel. We live for God, not for the expectations of others. Yancey claims there are two universal themes in his writings: suffering and grace. He brings them together in these pages.  

I listened to the audible version of this book. The author read his own work, which is always a benefit. However, I will also buy a paper copy of the book as there is much I would like to revisit.  I recommend this book, especially for those who come out of a fundamentalist background or those raised up in the era of Civil Rights.  

Michelle Layer Rahal, Straining Forward: Minh Phuong Towner’s Story (Maitland, FL: Xulon Press, 2018), 355 pages, 10 pages of photos. 

         I was introduced to Minh in 2011. I was preparing a sabbatical after leading First Presbyterian Church of Hastings (Michigan) through a building and relocation program. As I was going to be traveling overland from Asia to Europe, we attempted to find preachers from parts of the world in which I would be travelling. Through a connection with Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, I was introduced by phone to Minh. Although I have never met her in person, we talked several times by phone and became friends on Facebook. Of the international preachers the congregation heard that summer, Minh had made an impression. Hers is a haunting story. She connected with several Vietnam veterans and touched everyone with what she had endured as a boat refugee who fled the country as a teenager after the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. This is her story, told through her friend and author, Michelle Layer Rahal. 

         This is a brutal and honest book which has come out at a time when refugees are again in the news. It would be scary and dangerous for anyone, but especially for young woman, to be torn from family and alone in a foreign country. Being a refugee is to be vulnerable. Minh’s story illustrates the dangers.

         Minh’s world started coming apart long before she became a refugee. Raised in a family well-enough off to employ servants, her first experience of sexual abuse came from the family gardener. She attempted suicide (it would not be her first attempt and the thought of suicide would continue to run through her mind). Then, at age ten, the Vietcong killed her father and two younger brothers during the Tet Offensive. Minh’s life became chaotic. Sent to live with her grandfather, she found herself verbally abused. Her mother and aunt kept trying to set her up with American soldiers. Then, other family members sexually abused her.

         As the war was ending, her family tried to escape, but was unable to get out of the country. The family split up with the idea that it would be safer. The North Vietnamese captured her and her brother. They were captured, imprisoned, tortured by the conqueroring army. The captain of the prison selected her to be his mistress. Although still abused, he later helped her and her brother Thanh escape.

         On their third try, she and her brother made it out of Vietnam. Picked up by a Taiwanese fishing boat and taken to Taiwan, they could have moved to America. However, Minh had studied French at a Catholic School in Vietnam. With an uncle who lived in France, they decided to move to there. The living conditions were horrible. She eventually relocated to Australia, where she became a nurse, married an American living there, and gave birth to two children. But it wasn’t an easy journey. She was raped both in Paris and in Australia. She struggled with English and then to pass her exams. She was an exceptional worker, which allowed her to care for her family. But she suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disease (PTSD), which created many problems for her life.

         Two threads that run through the book are her relationship with God and her dealing with depression, thoughts of suicide, and her struggles with relationships (beyond that with her siblings) which has much to do with her struggles with PTSD. As a young child, she had grown up Catholic in Vietnam. It had given her the foundations so that she would pray when things were bad. But from her experience, she saw God as angry and vengeful and wondered what she’d done to deserve such treatment. It took a lot of work for her to learn to handle her emotions and the way her past colored her world. 

         Minh and her first husband divorced. When he moved back to the United States, taking their youngest daughter, Minh decided to relocate, too. Living in Virginia, she remarried, became involved in Vienna Presbyterian Church in Virginia, and went to seminary. The Presbyterian Church ordained her in 2017.

         I recommend this book. The ordeal Minh endured reminds us of how hard it can be for refugees and those without the protection of a country or a strong parent. Minh’s understanding of the role her past trauma played in her life and her coming to understand God as a gracious and loving Father should provide hope to those troubled in the world.