WITH HEAD AND HEART: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman

by Howard Thurman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 1979

Tamely edifying memoirs by the noted black preacher and author. Thurman, who is now 78, has had a full and productive life, but either there was no dramatic struggle, contradiction, doubt, etc., in it, or he's keeping it to himself. From his birth in poverty in Daytona, through his schooling at Morehouse and Howard, Rochester Seminary, Oberlin, and Haverford, to uninterrupted personal and pastoral success in San Francisco, Boston, and elsewhere, Thurman leads his readers as the Dean of Chapel he once was might lead a procession: with an air of gracious ease and imperturbable dignity. All along the way lie possibilities for soul-wrenching conflict, but Thurman passes them serenely by. He offers a brief tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., but the whole civil rights era and its aftermath seems barely to have grazed his consciousness. He starts out as a Southern Baptist and ends up as a sort of mystical Unitarian, but he treats this radical change as the most natural thing in the world, as if it never caused him a moment's pain or hesitation. Thurman isn't stiff or self-important, he just sounds like a man responding to a flattering speech at a testimonial dinner. There are bits of color here and there--travels to India and Africa, memories of boyhood, etc.--but for the most part it all pours out like an old sermon, well-rehearsed, smooth, vague, and, after a while, lethally predictable.

Pub Date: Nov. 12, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1979

Categories: NONFICTION