Offers a glimpse into the oft-shadowy world of a Christian cult.
In his second memoir, interspersed with details on escaping a religious cult, Hall reminds readers that religion ought to be about love and compassion and brutality and anger has no place among true Christians.
In his first book, Betrayal and Escape (2000), Hall (DDS) detailed his and his brother’s escape from the Roberts Religion, an ultraconservative religious cult, of which his mother was the leader. In this follow-up, the author goes deeper into the abuse he and his brother suffered at his mother’s hands–cruelty she heaped upon her adopted children, purportedly in God’s name. Scattered among the tales of oppression are biblical quotes he uses to directly contradict his mother’s teachings. Where she taught of a religion based on fear and xenophobia, Hall knew there was another Christianity out there–a religion he would not truly know until he found the courage to escape from his mother’s domination. However, this is not merely a reminiscence of escape. Like the Christianity with which he ultimately found solace, On Wings of Eagles is concerned with redemption. In his mother’s later days, she found the courage to apologize for her actions in his childhood, and he found the capacity to forgive. Like most autobiographies, the reader only gets access to one perspective–making the description of the Roberts Religion naturally biased. The author seems quick to ascribe all of his mother’s faults to the actions of Satan. Many memoirs blur the line between straight-talk and self-pity, and the book comes close to, but never actually crosses that line. Hall’s writing style is simple and direct, a solid method to recount his story. While some secular readers might be put off by the included biblical passages, the heart of the narrative–finding the courage to escape the only life you’ve ever known–is universal.
Offers a glimpse into the oft-shadowy world of a Christian cult.Pub Date: April 9, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4392-2534-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
