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JESUS, MY FATHER, THE CIA, AND ME

Name: JESUS, MY FATHER, THE CIA, AND ME
Author: Ian Morgan Cron
ISBN: 978-0-8499-4610-3

A MEMOIR...OF SORTS

by Ian Morgan Cron ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 2, 2011

A powerful story of faith and forgiveness.

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An Episcopal priest’s journey back to God and grace.

An alcoholic father who works for the CIA, an English nanny in powder-blue cat-eye glasses and an elegant but distracted mother are the three major influences that Cron (Chasing Francis, 2006) brings to life with much tongue-in-cheek humor (and pain) in a fast-paced narrative that “dances on the hyphen between memoir and autobiographical fiction.” Told from a Christian perspective, the book does not directly proselytize; instead, it is the story of Cron’s own faith walk and relationship with his father—an intriguing and somewhat sympathetic character when he was not punching his son or passed out on the floor. By the time the author was born, his father’s shadowy career as a CIA agent and family’s wealthy life in the UK had devolved into the horrors of alcoholism, desperate financial straits and social ostracism in Connecticut. From a good Catholic child who held “communion” with squirrels and longed for paternal love, Cron, not surprisingly, became a pot-smoking teenager and alcoholic who rejected his faith. Though his similes are a bit excessive (some work beautifully while others don’t), the author’s English major shines through with an interesting, well-written plot of pain and redemption. If the CIA element were removed, this could be the account of many post–World War II suburban children struggling to come to terms with emotionally distant fathers. Cron’s realism and lack of bitterness are a refreshing blend.

A powerful story of faith and forgiveness.

Pub Date: June 2, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-8499-4610-3

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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INTO THE WILD

by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...

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The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).

Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor will it to readers of Krakauer's narrative. (4 maps) (First printing of 35,000; author tour)