A far-out, disconcertingly readable memoir that flatly declares everything about aliens you read online or see dramatized on...
Lacy, a civil servant, musician, artist, and poet, (Heroes and Villains Down the Halls of Time, 2013) details a life as a recurring subject of so-called alien abduction phenomenon.
Born in Texas, the young Byron was not expected to survive a childhood case of sarcoma cancer. Yet he did, miraculously. In 1961, he witnessed a flying submarinelike thing at close range over his entire elementary school class as they exercised in the yard (he now surmises that the apathetic substitute teacher, the only adult supervisor, was a human-alien hybrid). Other uncanny events include repeated narrow escapes from deadly car accidents. Only in 2009 (after seeing a couple of “stargates” materialize in the sky) was Lacy convinced by his conspiracy-occult buff friends that he—and most likely his family—had been alien plagued and abducted for generations, and the imaginary playmate “pirates” Byron saw as a little boy were the enigmatic intruders, messing with human perception. Byron believes he and fellow “abductees” endured many strange experiences: missing time, bodily implants and mysterious scarring, and “little gray” humanoids. Genre superstar Whitley Strieber makes guest appearances at conventions, and while Byron’s solid, plainspoken prose contrasts with Streiber’s wild emotionalism in the cult-classic contactee memoir Communion, one does somewhat miss Strieber’s (at least initial) frantic quest for alternative explanations to the incredible. For Byron, it’s obvious; skeptics be damned, aliens are everywhere, countless folks are being abducted, and some extraterrestrials are giant insects, some are reptiles. He also contends that the U.S. government covered up that spacemen fought with troops at Dulce, New Mexico, and our moon is filled with machinery feeding on human torment. “Some weird stuff if you ask me,” Byron writes, a sublime understatement.
A far-out, disconcertingly readable memoir that flatly declares everything about aliens you read online or see dramatized on TV is true.Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5186-0634-2
Page Count: 442
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.
Lessons about life from those preparing to die.
A longtime hospice chaplain, Egan (Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago, 2004) shares what she has learned through the stories of those nearing death. She notices that for every life, there are shared stories of heartbreak, pain, guilt, fear, and regret. “Every one of us will go through things that destroy our inner compass and pull meaning out from under us,” she writes. “Everyone who does not die young will go through some sort of spiritual crisis.” The author is also straightforward in noting that through her experiences with the brokenness of others, and in trying to assist in that brokenness, she has found healing for herself. Several years ago, during a C-section, Egan suffered a bad reaction to the anesthesia, leading to months of psychotic disorders and years of recovery. The experience left her with tremendous emotional pain and latent feelings of shame, regret, and anger. However, with each patient she helped, the author found herself better understanding her own past. Despite her role as a chaplain, Egan notes that she rarely discussed God or religious subjects with her patients. Mainly, when people could talk at all, they discussed their families, “because that is how we talk about God. That is how we talk about the meaning of our lives.” It is through families, Egan began to realize, that “we find meaning, and this is where our purpose becomes clear.” The author’s anecdotes are often thought-provoking combinations of sublime humor and tragic pathos. She is not afraid to point out times where she made mistakes, even downright failures, in the course of her work. However, the nature of her work means “living in the gray,” where right and wrong answers are often hard to identify.
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59463-481-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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