by Dan Clark ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
One man’s successful return from a spiritual hell.
A page-turning glimpse into the lifestyle of a Jehovah’s Witness.
In sharing his memoir, Clark seeks catharsis and closure. Born and raised a Jehovah’s Witness in a particularly dysfunctional family, he describes his upbringing in a filthy, sometimes violent home with a mentally ill mother and an often-absent father. His early experiences ranged from shameful visits to Kingdom Hall, where his family sat at the periphery of the faith due to neglect, to visiting his mother in a mental hospital, a scarring experience. Reaching adulthood ill-equipped for the world, Clark entered a brief, failed marriage, turned back to Kingdom Hall, married again, then began a spiritual and emotional roller-coaster ride. After a lengthy struggle with the hypocrisy he perceived in the leadership and doctrine of his faith, Clark’s family finally left the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a jarring change that was part of the cause of the breakup of his second marriage. More ups and downs followed as he suffered through depression, financial ruin and another failed –an obviously painful and raw period, only briefly explored here. At last, Clark discovers peace in a new faith tradition and comfort through a third marriage. The story is engrossing, and the writing solid. Clark’s portrayal of the life of a Jehovah’s Witness is necessarily subjective, but it’s grounded in a lifelong experience with this often-mysterious faith; anyone who has received a Witness at their door will find his perspective intriguing. The tradition Clark presents is troubling at best, frightening at worst. Though an imperfect character in many respects, his ability to change course and seek out a truer relationship with God is inspiring.
One man’s successful return from a spiritual hell.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
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Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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