before starting this book i had picked up a piece of literature to read. however, if you’ve been following along the circumstances of my life of late you’ll know i was in no way ready to tackle real literature. so, the comedy of lewis black seemed like the perfect alternative. if your not familiar with lewis black you’ll be pleased to know that while his book may not qualify as fine literature there is still a loud and proud message to be found in there. from the author: since my head was in a continual spin cycle at the drama school, it made perfect sense that i would get married at this time. the wedding took place at the courthouse in rockville, maryland, with just my immediate family and hers. directly following the ceremony my brother and i walked out the door just as two officers of the law were passing by with a prisoner shackled between them. i looked at my brother and said, “when god sends you a message he certainly makes it loud and clear”.

its hard to be critical of this story because the author goes from running through the forests of sierra leone slitting people’s throats as a child soldier to graduating college in the united states. but from a literary perspective the book is only so-so. its the humanistic perspective that saves it. from the author: “visualize the banana tree as the enemy, the rebels who killed your parents, your family, and those who are responsible for everything that has happened to you,” the corporal screamed. “is that how you stab someone who had killed your family?” he asked. “this is how i would do it.”

there’s no denying this is a romance novel. but it is so many other good things that being a romance novel is easy to forgive. and the romance is the kind that makes you appreciate your wife and kids rather than desire a steamy affair with an exotic asian girl… but i digress.

the time travel aspect of the story is very clever and the author creates a variety of interesting situations like the following. from the author: i’m in my bedroom with my self. he’s here from next march. we are doing what we often do when we have a little privacy, when it’s cold out, when both of us are past puberty and haven’t quite gotten around to actual girls yet. i think most people would do this, if they had the sort of opportunities i have.

judging from the response i’ve gotten, i appear to be the only person who was intrigued to read this book after watching the movie capote. all other accolades aside i’m glad i read the story to reconcile a scene from the movie involving alvin dewey and a phone call that appeared way out of character and proves again that hollywood can’t resist even the most idiotic opportunity to overdo something. from the author: they [the clutters] never hurt me. like other people. like people have all my life. maybe it’s just that the clutters were the ones who had to pay for it.

i didn’t enjoy this as much as i expected but it remains a remarkable tribute to ruth jordan who raised a dozen, minority children who built these great resumes:

andrew dennis mcbride, b.a., lincoln university; m.d., university of pennsylvania medical school; m.p.h., yale university; assistant secretary for health and state health director, state of north carolina.

rosetia mcbride, b.a., howard university; m.s.w., social work, hunter college; clinical social worker, new york city board of education.

wiluam mcbride, b.a., lincoln university; m.d., yale university school of medicine; m.b.a., emory university school of business; medical director southeast region, medical and scientific affairs, merck and co., inc.

david mcbride, b.a., denison university; m.a., history, columbia university; ph.d., history, columbia university; chairman of afro-american history department, pennsylvania state university.

helen mcbride-richter, r.n., hospital of the university of pennsylvania; g.o.n.p., emory university school of medicine, graduate student in nurse midwifery, emory university school of nursing.

richard mcbride, u.s. army veteran, b.a., cheney university, chemistry; m.s., drexel university; associate professor of chemistry, cheney state; chemistry research associate, at&t.

dorothy mcbride-wesley, a.a., pierce junior college; b.a., la salle. university; medical practice office manager, atlanta, georgia.

james mcbride, b.a., oberlin college; m.s.j., journalism, columbia university; writer, composer, saxophonist.

kathy jordan, b.a., syracuse university; m.s., education, long island university; special-education teacher, ewing high school, ewing, new jersey.

judy jordan, b.a., adelphi university; m.a., columbia university teachers college; music teacher, philadelphia, pennsylvania.

hunter jordan, b.s., computer engineering, syracuse university; computer consultant, a new york area bank.

henry jordan, junior at north carolina a&t university; customer service and purchasing, neal manufacturing, inc., greensboro, north carolina.

and then herself:
ruth jordan, b.a., temple university, 1986.

a week long ski trip in the rocky mountains: special.
leaving your two kids under three years old at home: even more special.
the amazing hospitality of the vance family and completing a new book: priceless.

from the author: the only certainty that summer was moral confusion. it was my view then, and still is, that you don’t make war without knowing why. knowledge, of course, is always imperfect, but it seemed to me that when a nation goes to war it must have reasonable confidence in the justice and imperative of its cause. you can’t fix your mistakes. once people are dead, you can’t make them undead.

and more: a true war story is never moral. it does not instruct nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. if a story seems moral, do not believe it. if at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. there is no rectitude whatsoever. there is no virtue.as a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.

this story makes me feel inept, soft and extremely fortunate. from the author: even before the war, most of the prisoners had been well accustomed to the art of scraping by. the majority of them had grown up on small farms and ranches during the depths of the great depression. they knew discipline and self-reliance. they were field hands and shade-tree mechanics, men who were crafty with their fingers. they understood how to scrimp and barter and improvise. they grew up hunting, fishing, tinkering with tractors and old cars. from early boyhood most of them could tend their own gardens and were expert at butchering and dressing animals, using every scrap of the carcass.

i think chuck misunderstood his publisher’s requirements for this novel. instead of thirty pages, they wanted three hundred. the quick fix, repeat the first thirty pages ten times and the first thirty pages are indeed good reading, just not three, four and certainly not ten times.
from the author: every day, i came home from a hard day in the eighteenth century, and here’s a big lava rock on the kitchen counter next to the sink.

i so enjoyed finding neverland that i figured i should probably read the book. now i want to go see the play and complete a peter pan trifecta. from the author: the pirate attack had been a complete surprise: a sure proof that the unscrupulous hook had conducted it improperly, for to surprise redskins fairly is beyond the wit of the white man.

these two comic books, with mice playing jews and cats playing germans, tells one of the most human stories of the holocaust i’ve ever read. and, as if that wasn’t enough, the author exposes himself and his relationship with his parents as he extracts his father’s story of having lived through the holocaust. from the author:

so, come. we’ll go now in to give back our groceries.

no way! i’m not going in to return a load of open boxes and partially eaten food.

what’s to be so ashamed? it’s foods i can’t eat. you wait then in the car while i arrange it.

the first few chapters were very difficult to get through because they were filled with stories like the one below. this book adds to my conviction that no one really wins a war and that present generations do very little to prevent making the same mistakes that have occurred in the past. from the author: the soldier in the icu was no more than a boy, and he was dying. he had multiple abdominal wounds. tubes connected him to the equipment around him. one morning at about five, he asked stephanie for a glass of orange juice. “i told him he couldn’t have anything to drink”, she tearfully explained. he answered, “stephanie, i’m dead anyway. it doesn’t matter”. “ok”, she said, “let me see”. she called the doctor, who said “no”, so stephanie gave him nothing. fifteen minutes later he was dead.

i’d nearly forgotten how much fun it was to read for pleasure and i’m saying that after reading a fairly mediocre story. whats worse is that orson borrows so much of the plot from his religion and it seems to me that if your going to spin a yarn around an existing story it should be better than the original. from the author: once he had been so formidable that he was surrounded by enemies. now even his enemies had lost interest in him. what clearer sign of failure could you find than that.