David French picked up the newspaper in the comfort of his penthouse in Philadelphia, and read about a soldier – father of two – who was wounded in Iraq. Immediately, he was stricken with a question: Why him and not me?

This is the hook at the heart of Home and Away: A Story of Family in a Time of War by David and Nancy French. David (“a 37-year-old father of two, a Harvard Law graduate and president of a free speech organization”) didn’t just think about it or write about it he did something about it.  He went to Iraq and served his country on the front lines or as close as he could get.

The book tells the story of the impact of this decision, and all its ramifications, on him and his family. Nancy tells the home front side and David the enlisted side. Together they allow the reader to get a glimpse into life if someone in your family was called up and sent to war for a year.

David explains his motivation, and the thought process leading up to his enlistment and getting called up, while Nancy offers her response and experience while he was gone.

We see what it is like to live and work in a war zone; the bonds built and the tragedies that unfold – events that permanently change a person.  We also see the difficulties and emotional strains of being a single parent while your spouse is overseas in a war zone. How you interact with friends and family; the social interaction in the larger community that can become difficult; the ways you change and your relationships change.

And for this alone I think it is a valuable book.  Both David and Nancy offer honest and emotional insight into how they experienced this challenge and how it changed their lives. And this offers readers the ability to put themselves into that experience.

Two potential drawbacks: politics and style.  Politically and culturally the Frenches are conservative Republicans and Southern evangelicals. If you do not share this perspective there are points that might get under your skin.  David is clearly engaged in push-back against critics of the war in Iraq and in particular seeks to defend the soldiers and their conduct.

Understandable? Sure, and honestly and well articulated. But it might rub some the wrong way. And politics plays a large role in Nancy’s life as well – her relationship with the Mitt Romney presidential campaign (v. 2008) in particular.

And this ties into the style issue.  David and Nancy are in important senses both professional writers and the book is well written, often thought provoking and frequently entertaining. But they have two very different styles and the alternating chapters don’t always blend together well.

David has a straightforward logical style. There are often powerful emotions involved but he mostly just tells it like it is – here is how I see it, felt it, understand it, etc.  Nancy has a more sarcastic, self-effacing Southern humor style. Going back and forth between these two styles can be jarring and it undercuts the narrative energy at times.

Nancy’s sections in particular feel like a series of vignettes rather than a coherent story or timeline. Her trip to Utah and interaction with the Romney’s was rather bizarre and out of place (I understand it was an important aspect of her life but is felt odd to me). At the end I felt like I knew David better than Nancy and understood what his life was like better than hers.

But as I said, overall it is an interesting story that offers a unique and valuable perspective for our times.  Your tastes, perspective and attitudes (and perhaps gender) will obviously have an impact on your enjoyment of various aspects but it is an honest and entertaining look at something many of of us probably don’t think all that much about: what it means to send a spouse to a war zone for a year.

And if it can get us to think about the Americans who are going through this every day a little more, then it is worth it.

The book is divided into 14 parts which generally cover his childhood, Navy career, Congressional terms, various roles in the Nixon and Ford Administrations, private sector career, and stint as Secretary of Defense in the Bush Administration.  A majority of the book (close to 500 pages) covers his years in the Bush Administration.

One word describes Rumsfeld’s political life – fascinating.  He was obviously an important player in the Bush Administration, but I did not know how influential he was in his earlier political career - especially in the Nixon and Ford Administrations. He had relatively minor roles in the Nixon Administration until he was appointed U.S. Ambassador to NATO.  Under Ford, he was the Whitehouse Chief of Staff and then the Secretary of Defense.  In each of these roles, he brought his own style of leadership – allowing his subordinates to do their jobs without much interference from him unless they screwed up.

I normally stay away from political books because of my aversion to the subject, but I found this book interesting and engaging because of Rumsfeld’s unique personality – abrasive and a straight shooter.

I won’t dissect his political career in detail, but I will give my general thoughts on his time in the Bush Administration (I am most comfortable analyzing this era).  For instance, I think he was a key person in helping Bush to decide to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq – he was key not just because of his position as Defense Secretary, but also because of his beliefs in eliminating the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.

With regard to Afghanistan (and for that matter all of the Middle East), he argues that the Afghan form of Democracy will be much different from our or Europe’s form of Democracy.  The West has a deep history in democratic principles, but the Middle East does not have that same history.  So, Rumsfeld argues (fairly convincingly) that we should not have high expectations for a pure democratic government in Afghanistan.

Regarding Iraq, Rumsfeld explains his thoughts on the war.  He firmly believes in not directing military commanders on how to fight the war.  He rarely questioned decisions made by the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the exception of the general who replaced General Tommy Franks after the invasion.

Rumsfeld tries to address some of the most controversial issues of the Iraq War.  For instance, his stance on the charge that there were not enough troops on the ground to handle the Iraqi insurgency is that he depended on the military commanders (CENTCOM and Iraq) to tell him when more troops were needed – he contends that he asked several times whether send more troops and each time he was told that there were sufficient numbers.

Another controversial issue is the handling of Iraq after the end of hostilities following the invasion.  Rumsfeld argues that the Coalition Provisional Authority botched the transition from Coalition military rule to the Iraqi civil government.  Their ineptitude led to the insurgency.  I commend Rumsfeld for defending the Department of Defense, but I think he should take some responsibility – after all, one of his subordinates Paul Wolfowitz argued that we should attack Iraq while we were still engaged in Afghanistan.  I think this was a mistake because our military was stretched too thin.

Rumsfeld does not shy away from taking shots at the major foreign policy figures in the Bush Administration.  Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell are poorly portrayed at times.  Rice is accused of trying to make decisions based on consensus and Powell is accused of being influenced by the career diplomats rather than influencing the career diplomats.  Rumsfeld does not hold back his scorn for the State Department bureaucracy – he claims they were more interested in serving their own agendas rather than the agenda of Bush.

I think you will find Known and Unknown an enlightening and interesting read.

“Into My Father’s Wake” records the 5000-mile solo sail of journalist Eric Best as he struggles to come to terms with a recent divorce, solitude at sea and the impact of his powerful father in his life.

This personal adventure is a beautifully written and often poetic journey of a man sailing a 40-foot-ketch from San Francisco to Hawaii and back for the first time, testing his competence as a small-boat sailor and his tolerance for fear and physical exhaustion while issues in his life continue to dog him.

While Mr. Best’s realistic account of solo navigation should appeal to sailors everywhere – particularly those contemplating such an adventure at sea – his accompanying story of self-discovery will lend valuable insight to anyone trying to understand family origins and the influence of powerful individuals in our lives.

Publishers Weekly

Eteraz, known for his blog Islamophere, opens his memoir with a vivid description of his father promising Allah that if God bestowed him with a son, that boy “will become a great leader and servant of Islam.” The rest of the book finds Eteraz, whose given name is Abir ul Islam (which translates as “Perfume of Islam”) trying to come to terms with his father’s mannat, or covenant, and understand the role that Islam will play in his life as well as the role he will play for Islam. Born in Pakistan but raised in the U.S. from age 10, Eteraz moves easily between describing the holy history and tenets of his faith while exploring and explaining the differences between the Islamic world and Western society. As Eteraz’s feelings for Islam change to fit his evolving personal, political and religious views, readers get a glimpse of all aspects of this hot-topic religion, from fundamentalism to reformism, salafism and secularism. A gifted writer and scholar, Eteraz is able to create a true-life Islamic bildungsroman as he effortlessly conveys his coming-of-age tale while educating the reader. When his religious awakening finally occurs, his catharsis transcends the page.

–> The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of Modern China by Hannah Pakula

Publishers Weekly

Pakula, an experienced biographer of royal women (An Uncommon Woman: The Empress Frederick), looks at the imperious (if not imperial) wife of the Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, presenting a richly complex account of 20th-century China that, despite its length, remains thoroughly engrossing to the end. Born May-ling Soong (1897–2003) and educated in America, Madame Chiang and her five Soong siblings were wealthy, Christian, fluent in English and major players in Chinese politics. Marrying Chiang Kai-shek in 1927, the strong-minded and hot-tempered, shrewd and ruthless May-ling quickly became a partner in his efforts as Chinese leader until the Japanese invaded, and then in 1945 when Mao’s Communists drove him to Formosa (modern-day Taiwan), which he ruled until his death in 1975. From the 1930s to 1950s, Americans idolized Madame Chiang as a symbol of Chinese resistance to the brutal Japanese and as an anticommunist stalwart. But critics of her and Chiang’s ineffective, authoritarian, corrupt leadership soon became the majority. Pakula draws a vivid if often unflattering portrait of a charismatic Chinese patriot, her husband and family, in tumultuous and tragic times.

Cover via Amazon

I hope to actually start to digging my way out of my read-but-not-reviewed hole this week.  In the meantime, checkout these well reviewed works coming out in paperback (or will soon).

–> The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington by Jennet Conant

Publishers Weekly

What could be more intriguing than the young writer Roald Dahl—destined to create such classics as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—assigned by His Majesty’s Government to Washington, D.C., as a diplomat in the spring of 1942, charged with a secret mission? Dahl’s brief was to gather intelligence about America’s isolationist circles (indeed, he infiltrated the infatuated Claire Boothe Luce in more ways than one) and propagandize for prompt American entry into the European war. The United States had technically been at war with Germany since December 1941. However, the U.S.’s attention was focused mainly on the Pacific theater—and such pro-German political figures as Luce and Charles Lindbergh meant to keep it that way. Dahl’s most important job was to influence public opinion generally and the opinions of Washington’s powerful specifically. As bestselling author Conant (Tuxedo Park) shows in her eloquent narrative, Dahl’s intriguing coconspirators included future advertising legend David Ogilvy and future spy novelist Ian Fleming. Most fascinating, though, is Dahl’s relationship with the great British spymaster William Stephenson, otherwise known as Intrepid. This all boils down to a thoroughly engrossing story, one Conant tells exceptionally well.

–> Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg

Publishers Weekly

Columnist and author Greenberg’s heartbreaking and inspiring memoir details his daughter’s downfall into insanity one hot summer in New York City. Greenberg writes with a raw passion and intensity, capturing the essence of every detail and event as if they were occurring in real time as he types. His reading is a heartfelt and honest attempt to relate the experiences with as much restrained emotion as possible, offering it as part headline news story, part editorial. With perfect pitch, tone and pacing, Greenberg is a talented narrator, who will surely capture and hold listeners’ attention.

–> The Wrong Mother by Sophie Hannah

Publishers Weekly

Sally Thorning, part-time environment rescuer and full-time mother, struggles to maintain her sanity and juggle the overwhelming demands of work and home in this superior psychological mystery from British author Hannah (Little Face). During a week away from her husband and children, Sally has a brief affair. A year later a local headline tragedy—Sally’s lover’s wife appears to have murdered her six-year-old daughter then committed suicide—reveals that Sally’s lover was not who he claimed to be and she needs to find out why. After surviving a shove in front of a bus, Sally re-examines that unwise affair as she plays amateur detective and nearly loses all she values in the process. The story alternates between Sally’s confessional and a tight police procedural interspersed with evidence—pages torn from the diary of the alleged daughter-killer. Paced like a ticking time bomb with flawlessly distinct characterization, this is a fiercely fresh and un-put-downable read.

For those of you not golf fans, or who inexplicably didn’t follow the amazing events of last year, here is recap.  Tiger Woods was coming of April knee surgery and hadn’t played a 18-hole round of golf before the US Open started.  Many wondered if Tiger would finish the tournament.  But if Tiger is in the field then he is the favorite; and he had won at Torry Pines, the US Open site, many times including earlier that year at the Buick Open.

Rocco Mediate was a successful PGA journeyman whose bad back had kept him from achieving the kind of success his talent might have brought him.  He was more famous for his talkative demeanor than for competing in majors. If you had to pick a player that would challenge Tiger Woods for a major championship, and in spectacular fashion, you would not have picked Mediate.

But last year these two very different golfers produced one of the most memorable US Opens in golf history.  Tiger mixed in some very ugly golf with the kind of shots only Tiger can make to storm to the lead after 54 holes.  Thirteen times before Tiger has taken the lead after three rounds and thirteen times he has won.  And yet Mediate pushed Tiger to the brink; twice forcing him to make birdie on the final hole to stay alive.

Mediate in turn frequently seemed about to fade away and let Tiger grab another spectacular win.  But on numerous occasions he pulled himself together and played remarkable golf in the most pressure cooker of situations (three successive birdies on the Monday playoff to take it too sudden death).  In the end it took Tiger 92 holes to beat Rocco.  Tiger may have had a bad knee, but Rocco still forced arguably the greatest golfer of all time, and one of sports most dominant competitors, to use everything he had to win.  And Tiger labeled it his greatest win ever.

You don’t have to be a golf or sports fan to appreciate the drama and appeal of this story.  But what Mediate and Feinstein offer in Are You Kidding Me? is not just a shot by shot recap of the tournament – although the coverage of the event is well done – but rather a better understanding of the person and golfer behind it.As a pretty avid fan of the PGA I knew who Rocco Mediate was and knew of his back problems.  But I didn’t really know that much about his career and how he came to be on the Tour.  It turns out that Rocco wasn’t a high school or college superstar but rather someone who came to golf relatively late and who became a pro through hard work and dedication.

Sure, Mediate clearly had talent and athletic ability (his dad was a semi-pro baseball player and avid golfer) but he wasn’t one of those young phenoms who everyone expects to join the PGA and make a splash.  He didn’t win a college national championship or US Amateur championships, but his personality was such that when he wanted to do something he put his whole heart and mind into it.  And that is exactly what he did with golf.

AYKM also provides a interesting snapshot of what it is like to make a living on the PGA Tour.  It shows the growth of the tour, and the explosion of purses post-Tiger, but it also highlights all of the myriad decisions and the emotional roller coaster ride that the tour involves if you are not one of the elite players.  Qualifying through Q-school; worrying about making enough money to keep your tour card; figuring out which tournaments to play; knowing when to rest and when to play; managing your finances; working with coaches, caddies and mentors to improve your game; dealing with the logistics and difficulties of having a family while being on the road; all of these and more go into being a successful tour professional.  Watching golf on TV, or even in person, you might not be aware of all that goes on behind the scenes and in the golfers lives.

What stands out in this story is Mediate’s struggle with back problems.  All golfers struggle with back pain, and Rocco is not the only one to have his career threatened by injury, but his story is an interesting one nonetheless. The up and down nature of the injury made for a very challenging career.  When he was healthy Mediate was one of the better players on tour and, particular if his putter was hot, a threat to win most weeks.  But if his back flared up he could end up face down in the parking lot unable to move or stuck mid-round trying to figure out how could finish the round without embarrassing himself.

Mediate made a lot of money on the PGA Tour as Tiger’s impact on the game pushed purses higher and higher.  But imagine wondering if your career, and your only real opportunity to make a living, could go away with one twist of muscle.  It is a testament to Mediate’s determination and dedication that he never gave up.  And this competitive nature helps illuminate what led him to challenge Tiger Woods last year at Torrey Pines.

All of this struggle and all of this pain made the amazing days last June all the sweeter for Rocco.  He got his dream of facing the best player on the planet for a chance to win the US Open.  And he gave it everything he had and came within inches – a rotation of a golf ball one way or the other – from winning it.  Even losing that week changed changed his life, but there will always be a bitter-sweet element to it.  As Rocco has said many times: “I lost. The other guy won.”

The fact that he did so with so much skill, courage and good humor, however, only added to the incredible events last summer.  His obvious enjoyment of the game and of the moment reminded us why we love sports. And it caused millions of people all over the world come to appreciate his character and his game.

Are You Kidding Me? is a must read for golf and sport fans – and would make a great Father’s Day gift.  But you don’t have to be a fan of the game to appreciate the story.  It really is a classic tale of overcoming adversity and giving your best when everything is on the line and letting the chips fall where they will.

Who knows what will come of this year’s Open.  Maybe another incredible fight to the finish will result from the weather problems.  But last years battle at Torrey Pines will be remembered for a long time.  And Rocco Mediate and John Feinstein have told the story as no one else can.

Publishers Weekly

Veteran espionage novelist Littell (Vicious Circle; The Company; etc.) trades cold war spies for interwar Russian poets in his wonderful new novel. In 1934, real-life poet Osip Mandelstam struggles to get published in the totalitarian state. A battered idealist who has witnessed his share of Stalin-orchestrated horrors, Mandelstam feels writers have an abiding responsibility to be truth tellers in this wasteland of lies. Much to the despair of his fellow poets, Osip writes an epigram likening Stalin to a ruthless killer, leading to Osip’s arrest, brutal interrogation and exile. The robust narrative employs an array of narrators, including Osip’s devoted wife, Nadezhda; his disloyal lover, actress Zinaida Zaitseva-Antonova; and Stalin’s personal bodyguard, Nikolai Vlasik. The most intriguing voice heard is that of Fikrit Shotman, a weightlifter turned circus strongman who shares a cell with Osip and whose journey from Moscow prison to Siberian gold mine perfectly captures the absurdity of life under tyranny. Littell is unflinching in his portrayal of Osip’s tragic arc, bringing a troubled era of Russian history to rich, magnificent life.

–> Step By Step by Lawrence Block

Kirkus Reviews

The prolific crime novelist (Hit and Run, 2008, etc.) writes about his adventures as a racewalker. The author’s focus at first seems puzzling. Block chooses not to tell the story of his writing life-a project he began but abandoned after weeks of feverish writing-or his personal life (“if you wanted to know something about me, well, too bad”). Instead, the memoir focuses almost entirely on his distance walking. Generally these walks are competitive-marathons and 24-hour walks in which the globetrotting Block consistently ignores both the scenery (he leaves his glasses at home) and the other runners and concentrates on beating his shortest time and longest distance. When he’s not entering formal events-from which he took a hiatus for more than 20 years-he and his wife are driving across America in search of all the towns named Buffalo or traversing Spain on foot. Block occasionally goes off on amusing tangents. He writes briefly on the question of why even nonobservant Jews like himself don’t eat pork, the nature of his interfaith (make that interagnostic) marriage and his preference for trees over Porta-Potties. On the whole, though, this is an account of the author’s entering event after event, wondering why he keeps walking despite blisters and backaches. It’s telling that the only two books whose gestation he describes in any detail are his novel Random Walk (1988) and the present volume. Fans of Block’s fiction may be interested, but they should be prepared to skim the particulars of times and distances that the author assiduously records. A peripatetic but never pedestrian memoir.

–> The Night of The Gun by David Carr

Amazon.com Review

In his fabulously entertaining The Kid Stays in the Picture, legendary Hollywood producer Robert Evans wrote: “There are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth.” David Carr’s riveting debut memoir, The Night of the Gun, takes this theory to the extreme, as the New York Times reporter embarks on a three-year fact-finding mission to revisit his harrowing past as a drug addict and discovers that the search for answers can reveal many versions of the truth. Carr acknowledges that you can’t write a my-life-as-an-addict story without the recent memoir scandals of James Frey and others weighing you down, but he regains the reader’s trust by relying on his reporting skills to conduct dozens of often uncomfortable interviews with old party buddies, cops, and ex-girlfriends and follow an endless paper trail of legal and medical records, mug shots, and rejection letters. The kaleidoscopic narrative follows Carr through failed relationships and botched jobs, in and out of rehab and all manner of unsavory places in between, with cameos from the likes of Tom Arnold, Jayson Blair, and Barbara Bush. Admittedly, it’s hard to love David Carr–sometimes you barely like the guy. How can you feel sympathy for a man who was smoking crack with his pregnant girlfriend when her water broke? But plenty of dark humor rushes through the book, and knowing that this troubled man will make it–will survive addiction, fight cancer, raise his twin girls–makes you want to stick around for the full 400-page journey.

But it is more than that.

For those unfamiliar with the subject here is some useful background from the book’s website:

Joe Mackall has lived surrounded by the Swartzentruber Amish community of Ashland County, Ohio, for over sixteen years. They are the most traditional and insular of all the Amish sects: the Swartzentrubers live without gas, electricity, or indoor plumbing; without lights on their buggies or cushioned chairs in their homes; and without rumspringa, the recently popularized “running-around time” that some Amish sects allow their sixteen-year-olds.

Over the years, Mackall has developed a steady relationship with the Shetler family (Samuel and Mary, their nine children, and their extended family). Plain Secrets tells the Shetlers’ story over these years, using their lives to paint a portrait of Swartzentruber Amish life and mores. During this time, Samuel’s nephew Jonas finally rejects the strictures of the Amish way of life for good, after two failed attempts to leave, and his bright young daughter reaches the end of school for Amish children: the eighth grade. But Plain Secrets is also the story of the unusual friendship between Samuel and Joe. Samuel is quietly bemused—and, one suspects, secretly delighted—at Joe’s ignorance of crops and planting, carpentry and cattle. He knows Joe is planning to write a book about the family, and yet he allows him a glimpse of the tensions inside this intensely private community.

If I had to pick a word to descirbe Mackall’s writing it would be “honest.”

In our day and age the concept of “real” has become a cliche; part of a hokey phrase like “keeping it real.” But there is something very real about the way Mackall writes and the stories he tells.  The relationships he explores and the way he communicates them reflects both an honest curiostiy but also a deep respect for the people involved.

Mackall gives the reader a basic overview of the this particular Amish community and helpfully provides context for the larger Amish culture.  He does this with care by intentionally avoiding sensationalism.  But at the same he xplores his own feelings about this unique community and what this says about our culture and theirs – and how the two interact. This deep respect for his subject matter and a continuing sense of introspection makes for a much deeper story.

Those with an interest in the Amish are probably already well aware of Plain Secrets.  But if you have ever wondered about Amish life this would be a great introduction – not because of the technical details but because of the real sense of how they live.  But really, anyone who enjoys well written narrative non-fiction would enjoy this engaging book.

Joe Mackall’s [amazon-product region="us" text="The Last Street Before Cleveland" type="text"]0803232551[/amazon-product] was one book that got lost in the shuffle somehow and sat in the “To Be Reviewed” pile for months.  So this week I resolved to write about it and check that off the list.

So what exactly is the book about?  Despite the books brevity (150 pages) it is not easy to summarize.  It is about trying to go home again; about overcoming depression and finding faith; about memory and nostalgia; about the dying blue collar world; etc.

The publisher describes it this way:

The old neighborhood was the place Joe Mackall left. It was a place where everyone’s parents worked at the factory at the dead end of the street, where the Catholic church and school operated like a religious city hall, and where a boy like Joe grew up vowing to get out as soon as he could and to shed his blue-collar beginnings and failed, flawed religion. When the mysterious death of a childhood friend draws him back to the last street before Cleveland, however, he discovers that there is more to “old haunts” than mere words—and more to severing one’s roots than just getting away.

The titular “last street before” Cleveland is the street Mackall lived on in Parma, Ohio just outside of Cleveland; one street up and you were in Cleveland proper.  Which is not all that far away from where the author lives now in Ashland, Ohio where he teaches English and journalism at Ashland University.  But culturally and metaphorically it is a different world.

So when he returns to the geography of his youth it is a disorientating experience and it takes him in directions he never anticipated.  This memoir takes the reader along for the ride.

For my belated thoughts click below.

And allow me to once again be lazy, or derivative, and use the PW blurb as a jumping off place:

Mackall returns to his childhood blue-collar stomping grounds when a friend dies, for reasons he doesn’t fully explain in this focused but gloomy memoir. Mackall, an English and journalism professor at Ohio’s Ashland University, recounts the working-class culture of the 1970s Midwest and tells of how his Italian immigrant grandfather, fleeing the mob, made his way to suburban Cleveland. Mackall’s elegy for the workers’ world employs delightful language (after all, he’s a “card-carrying nostalgist” with a knack for one-liners).

However, he struggles in writing about his present despair, about what he lacks and what he hopes to find by returning to Cleveland. As Mackall begins to doubt the efficacy of his search, spiraling into isolation and a renewed drug addiction, his prose dries up, as does the narrative’s concentration on his illuminating memories. “Aching to drag the past” into his lungs, he begins to contemplate a “self-administered overdose”-that is, until a sudden rekindling of faith in God hits.

The epiphany, coming after the repetitious middle section, is a relief-but the restoration of working-class stability via faith is not as convincing, or nearly as beautiful, as the earlier nostalgic recreation of a lost world.

The first thing that struck me was how much I could relate to this memoir.  The list of differences between my childhood and Mackalls is quite large: I am a Midwesterner, and currently live in Ohio, but I didn’t grow up near an urban area; my family wasn’t really blue collar; nor were they Catholic.

But what I could relate to was that sense of loss; the feeling that the world of your youth – and all the related connections – is gone.  My family have moved quite a bit and I lack much besides psychological connections to the places I grew up.  I feel like I don’t have a “home” like some people do.

I also feel like I have a strong melancholic side to my personality which matched Mackall’s tone; a sort of blend of nostalgia, regret, and loss.

I think the Christian Century review captured why I could relate:

The central theme of the book is not surprising–that the journey itself is the only true home. Life and faith are not about any arrival but about the struggles along the road. Yet Mackall writes with rare honesty and a compelling narrative voice. At times he manages a kind of dark humor that opens readers to deeper themes.

And while I agree, with PW, that the first third of the book might employ more “delightful language” I didn’t find either the middle or the concluding sections dry or repetitive.  Instead, I think it was more a function of the actions taking place.

Mackall is basically spinning his wheels mentally, physically, and spiritually in this middle section.  The search for his past didn’t bring the needed answers, the drugs are only making things worse and he feels like he can’t find a way out.  The first section has a more interesting narrative because it is a blend of outside actions, including reflections on past actions, and internal actions.

As the book moves toward the present, and the destabilizing effects of his journey on the present, the physical actions are dreary and uneventful for the most part.  In describing this mental, spiritual, and physical exhaustion, the text takes on some of the frustration and angst. But it is necessary to sense the relief involved in what PW calls the epiphany.  Just like Mackall, the reader wants to break out of this cycle.  But for me it didn’t drag on in such a way as to be annoying or distracting.  It felt natural.

I also think one of the reasons the faith focused section, the very end, comes off less flushed out than many would seem to like is because Mackall is a very private person when it comes to these matters.  This new found, or re-found, faith is fragile and deeply personal.  He isn’t going to unpack it all and offer up a complete theological package.

And contrary to PW, I did find the spiritual recovery beautiful.  Once again, the Christina Century gets it right.  The review turns Mackall’s prose into a sort of free verse poetry in the way the text is presented:

I listen to the snow squeaking beneath
my feet and the geese honking
overhead. I hear an Amish
horse and buggy in the distance….
Have the clip-clopping hooves always
dripped with such exquisite
harmony? Down the road I can
make out clusters of tiny black angels
scurrying against the snow.
The sight of these Amish children
walking home from school nearly
drops me to my knees. The cold
wind against my face feels like a
frigid grace. An old man in a beat-up
blue pickup passes me and
waves. It’s as if something has revealed
a tear in the surface of
things. I see connections everywhere.

To me that has beauty and grace to it.

The Last Street Before Cleveland is a deeply personal book and one that packs a lot of emotion and power in a slim volume.  I am not a big reader of memoirs and personal essays, but Mackall’s subject and obvious writing skill made this one well worth reading.

Sorry, it took me so long to tell you about it.

Publishers Weekly

A couple of smalltime grifters are taken for a ride by the enticing young woman they choose as an easy mark in this nifty little page-turner from Holden (The Narcissist’s Daughter). Young, beautiful and bored Darcy Arlen is in Rome on a group tour of Europe, a gift for her high school graduation. When she comes across young, good-looking Will staring pensively into the Tiber River, she’s more than ready for an adventure. Will and his partner/lover Justine, 39, have been on the road for several years, living off small cons and thievery, into which she has initiated him. The duo sees Darcy as a lamb to be shorn, and soon enough the two separate her from her tour, and they all head to Venice and then on to the Greek island of Matala. It slowly becomes clear that Darcy is not the innocent everyone supposes her to be, and the plot morphs into con-man-conned territory. Holden cops out on a few promised revelations, but in the end everything falls nicely into place, adding up to a slick, sexy read.

–> Swimming in a Sea of Death by David Rieff

Publishers Weekly

At age 70, Susan Sontag was diagnosed with a virulent form of blood cancer, her third bout with cancer over the course of 30 years and one she would not win. Her son, journalist Rieff (At the Point of a Gun), accompanied her through her final illness and death, and offers an extraordinarily open, moving account of the trial and journey. Sontag’s avidity for life had prompted her to beat the advanced breast cancer that devastated her in 1975; she now resolved to fight the statistical odds of dying from myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), despite the pessimistic prognosis from doctors. Rieff, who admits he was not close to his mother over the preceding decade, is silenced by Sontag’s refusal to reconcile herself to dying and unable to console her. Both mother and son are by turns angered by doctors’ infantilizing treatment of terminally ill patients and by their squelching of hope. Anxious, chronically unhappy and obsessed with gathering information about her disease, Sontag was unable to be alone, and Rieff becomes one in a circle of devotees who rotate staying with her at her New York City apartment. A doctor is found who does not believe her case is hopeless, and in Seattle she undergoes a bone-marrow transplant. In this sea of death, Sontag took her son with her—conflicted, wracked, but wrenchingly candid, Rieff attempts to swim out.