J. R. Mabry, Ash Wednesday (Apocryphile Press, 2022)

When I asked to review this book through Speakeasy, I was a bit uncertain. The reference to the Christian liturgical day inaugurating the Lenten season caught my attention, and the description intrigued me enough to read. While this is a book with Christian themes -- and some spiritually provocative nuances which offer depth -- make no mistake, this is not a "Christian book." It is a multi-layered venture with elements of science fiction (where are those personalized, death-describing cubes in the field coming from?), forays into the world of the occult (what is the difference between those call themselves "Satanists" and those who are "Thelemites"?), buttressed by the presence of Pastor Peg, a mainline clergy person who is strikingly human while being deeply rooted in faith, and her relationships with an estranged daughter, a retired priest and members of her community.

Mabry's style is direct, punctuated with sophisticated characters and deft conversational interludes. The author spares no words or phrases to capture the essence of unique personalities, and readers easily offended by clergy using foul language or expressing cynicism need to be prepared. The beauty of Mabry's work is that in addition to portraying the grittiness of authentically lived life, there are numerous strands of redemption and grace woven throughout. These threads are not glaringly obvious, smarmy enticements intended to compel. Rather, in the midst of trauma and uncertainty, the book's characters are as intriguingly complicated as the people in all of our lives.

I was uncertain when I picked up the book to read and, frankly, continued to be disarmed through the book's conclusion. It is not quite like anything I have read for a long while, and that's a good thing for ardent readers who tire of familiar tropes and brain-numbing authorial pedantry. Ash Wednesday is an innervating read with apocalyptic dimensions that could change the way you think about the human condition, with all of its pain, evil and trauma, as well as the opportunity for transformation in the midst of it all.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead (Harper 2022).

Barbara Kingsolver has done it again! A first-class author who has spun many a tale over the years offers an impressive comprehension of complicated characters living through generational traumas of many kinds. In particular, she captures the reality of "Demon Copperhead," tracing his years through early years of trauma with his birth mother, the compounding trauma of less-than-adequate foster homes, and the eventual grittiness of establishing young adulthood in an environment rife with unemployment and opioid abuse. Especially powerful is her ability to capture the verbal cadence and age-appropriate reflections of a child who becomes a man in the rough terrains of Appalachia. Kingsolver captures the thinking process of "Demon" to provide the reader with moments of humor and heartbreak. In the shadow of Dopesick and all we have learned over the past decade about ways that Appalachia was targeted by greedy pharmaceutical firms to make astronomical profits while enslaving an already-challenged population, Kingsolver provides the faces and stories of the (fictional) characters on the receiving end. At times her narrative is appropriately dark, and the reader feels the frustration and hopelessness experienced by real people affected in real ways by the opioid pandemic which continues to sweep through this geographical region. Brilliantly, however, she is able to weave her tale with moments of optimism and hope, revealing the true character and resilient nature of those who call Appalachia home. Indeed, she understands this part of the world where she herself resides, and invites the reader to consider the multi-layered complexity of those affected by early childhood trauma, and how, even in the midst of such pain, hope is yet possible.

C. D. Baker, Remembering Stardust (Self-Published 2022).

I didn't want to like C. D. Baker's self-published 1960s retrospective. Generally I find self-published fiction lacking meaningful substance, exhibiting skeletal plot lines and offering little character development. Indeed, there are several ways that Baker's novel disappoints, including at least one potential ethnic slur (p. 347), a possible unlikelihood ("Wheatley Bible Church," an independent, fundamentalist-type congregation observing Communion on "the first Sunday of the month"), and a grammatical construction error ("Maybe Oliver's down-deep desperately needed to sustain," p. 204). The editorial risks of self-publishing are self-apparent. The reader is also left wondering about the date stamps throughout the novel. While providing contextual clues, the specificity of dates are distracting. Why, for example, is Sunday, August 22, 1965, a better choice than simply "late summer 1965"? A specific date causes the reader to anticipate a reason for such precision, and the lack of any textual cohesion with the dates cited draws the reader to ask whether s/he has missed something.

In spite of these small details, however, this a novel worth the reader's time. The author does a better-than-average job in describing the life-time effects of childhood trauma, and renders the pain of family dysfunction and domestic violence in believable ways. Entree into the mind of young adult Oliver, and the growing awareness of his personal history is on target. Like many who experience personal trauma, Oliver is a character who also knows toxic religiosity. Oliver is a believable character because his traumas stem from more than one source, and his responses to these traumas seem very true to life.

Baker weaves into his narrative other interesting characters, including Oliver's father, sister and step-mother, as well as other important people in his life, including a romantic dalliance, a despotic preacher and a soul-saving mystic whose Love (capitalization important) transforms many lives.

Set as it is in the early 1960s in Anywhere, USA, Remembering Stardust evokes the emotion of that era. The reader who lived through the 1960s will be drawn back in time, while those younger have the opportunity to reflect on that era of American life. Political figures (Lyndon Baines Johnson and Barry Goldwater, for example) and musical releases (including those from the Beatles, Dylan and the Byrds) are well-appropriated authorial inclusions.

Not to be missed is the author's well-crafted and meaningful attention to the inner changes of the book's main character, Oliver Goode. Baker artfully utilizes metaphor and spiritual language to convey the inner workings of deep, spiritual transformation.

And what of "Stardust"? You'll have to read the book!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255. 

Imani Perry, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation (HarperCollins 2022).

I am not native to the South, but I have been living in "Mother Country" (Perry's chapter title description for Virginia) for six years now. As a resident outsider, I learn, on a near daily basis, something new about living in what is the most historic territory in the USA. Some of that knowledge is factual (the first Thanksgiving took place in Virginia on the Berkley Hundred, on the James River in 1619), other is intuitive awareness of a more subtle kind (the way "house" is pronounced varies from location to location in the Old Dominion). My meager understanding of "the South" thus far extends only so far as the Commonwealth of Virginia, and I recognize I have a lot to learn.

Much of that learning can be acquired through carefully written history texts or accessed on any one of multiple websites, from tourism sites, to family history sites, as well as state government sites. Accumulating tidbits of knowledge is quite accessible for even the most casually interested newcomer to a geographical setting. It is much more challenging, indeed, to gain an awareness of the subtleties of context, most of which are not apparent even to those who have lived in an area for generations.

Imani Perry is masterful in creating the literary environment for such nuanced, intuitive learning. Her style

is autobiographical, suffused with multiple references to historical, cultural and literary figures for the multi-faceted world of "the South." Her work reflects a warm personal style, while not neglecting the sturdy necessity of factual moorings.

Her concluding chapters, in particular, are Imani Perry at her best. Her "Magnolia Graves and Easter Lilies: New Orleans" is a candid, appreciative reflection of her childhood home. Her craft shines as she interweaves her family's personal history with contextual details about Louisiana that are distinctly revelatory. While she does well in describing the other parts of the South, Perry shines with her chapter about Louisiana, and New Orleans in particular. In this chapter, don't miss her intriguing history of the United Fruit Company and its Louisiana/Central American connections.

Her final chapter may be a bit of a surprise for the unsuspecting reader, because the author sees The Bahamas and Havana as part of "the South." With convincing detail she makes the connections between the USA cultural south and these two Caribbean nations. If you mentally puzzle about the deep and abiding racial challenges in the USA, it will do you well to contemplate what Perry has to say in her final chapter, "Paraíso: The Bahamas and Havana."

South to America is a work all USAmericans, whatever your cultural/ethnic/racial heritage, need to read, for it is beneficial in bridging many thought gaps we have to understand how significant "the South" is to understanding our "American" soul.

Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times (New York: Riverhead Books, 2020).

Now that much of the world is emerging after a more-than-year-long season of pandemic-driven isolation and anxiety, Katherine May's Wintering may provide a means to think through all that has occurred within our private and corporate psyches. In memoir-like fashion, May artfully shares her own life as a backdrop to draw the reader to understand wintering.

Wintering is a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in life when you're cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider. Perhaps it results from an illness or a life event such as a bereavement or the birth of a child; perhaps it comes from a humiliation or failure. Perhaps you're in a period of transition and have temporarily fallen between two worlds. Some winterings creep upon us more slowly, accompanying the protracted death of a relationship, the gradual ratcheting up of caring responsibilities as our parents age, the drip-drip-drip of lost confidence (10).

May's writing style is articulate, graceful, precise and expansive. Word-lovers will find a delightful repast served on a vocabularic table of plenitude. Especially enchanting are her connections between the worlds of nature (plant life, birds, bees) and the vicissitudes of human experience. Not to be missed are her carefully crafted descriptions of the thrumming life within the beehive, the glory of aurora borealis and the joyful elation of the robin.

Divided by seasonal months ("September" through "March") Wintering is a credible journey through life's dark valleys and frigid vistas, helping the reader dislodge him- or herself from emotional "stuck-ness" in order to experience the truth of life: there are deep, difficult moments of hardship, but there are also times when winter breaks into spring, with renewed life, vigor and song.

Whether you are currently wintering, have had a history of cold, dark times or recognize you are on the verge of entering such a season once again, you need to read this book. May does not encourage the reader to avoid winter seasons, but rather to embrace these times for the eventual good such times bring to our deepest human yearnings.

Who Stole My Bible? Reclaiming Scripture as a Handbook for Resisting Tyranny (Jennifer Butler, Faith in Public Life, 2020)

Butler's book has at least three audiences in mind: (a) the religious progressive seeking rootage in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, (b) those beginning a journey into a theologically progressive environment, and (c) those who seek to better understand how "progressive Christian" is not an oxymoron.

The author has distinguished herself over the years in her progressive social activism, closely connected to Faith in Public Life. Her distinctive contribution is the desire to show how Scripture creates a progressive mindset.In her relatively short volume (149 pages) the author guides the reader from Genesis to Revelation in understanding the wide scope of Scripture's consistent heartbeat: resist tyranny and serve God. The kind of service the author sees is undergirded with liberation (her helpful bibliography includes the recognize "names" of liberation and womanist theologies, to name two categories). Early on she cites her goal: to connect biblical and post biblical leaders "whose work has shown just what can and should be done to resist tyranny" (xxv).

This is a helpful read for those seeking an introduction to progressive religious thought, as well as a refresher for those reappraising their own faith stance. Regrettably, the book was written just before the 2020 elections, so much of the rhetoric is formed in response to (what was at the time the current tenure of) President Trump. Published in 2020, but released after the election, the book was too late to pique the thinking of voters, and cannot consider the possibilities offered by the blue-wave 2020 election results. A publication and release date a year earlier may have been especially relevant.

That said, Butler's work is helpful. She elucidates the possibilities of a progressive social agenda and skillfully weaves biblical and theological thought to make a convincing argument. For Christians disheartened with the radical right, Butler is a helpful antidote. For those already committed to a progressive theological and social agenda, Butler affirms and strengthens.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.

The End Is Music: A Companion to Robert W. Jenson's Theology (Chris E. W. Green, Cascade Books, 2018)

Author Chris Green acknowledges, within the first few words of his Preface, the difficulty of writing a worthwhile companion to a theologian's broader work. This is especially the case, he writes, for a theologian of such prodigious writing volume as Robert Jenson (1930-2017). Because I am virtually unfamiliar with Jenson's work, I picked up this volume as a means to acquaint myself

with Jenson and to help me decide whether or not to investigate more deeply his theology.

In spite of Green's reservations, his relatively brief (around 125 pages, without bibliography) companion to Jenson is well done. He lays out with clarity Jenson's theological program in broad terms and then systematically parses his work into chapters which include: God, Truth, Creation, Salvation, Church and Kingdom.

Green captures my attention in several ways. (1) I'm fascinated by the connection Jenson, a devoutly Lutheran theologian, has with the pre-Colonial Puritan Jonathan Edwards. Green's several references to this connection intrigue me to investigate more deeply this unlikely trans-historical, cross-denominational theological match-up. (2) Throughout Green's brief companion volume, he references Jenson's explication of the nature of time and its relationship with a creative God in ways that open new thinking vistas for the practical theological (i.e., the "pastor," the "preacher"). (3) His final chapter, especially his thoughtful coverage of Jenson's eschatology is hopeful and faith-inspiring. It is a healthy, optimistic contrast to much of Christian publishing's past two or more decades of "Left Behind" nonsense.

Like many pastors, I have taken little time since seminary days to intentionally devote time to reading theological tomes. Occasionally I have dipped into some of the past's heavy-hitters (Barth and Brunner, for example), but not for any protracted period of time. The ever-present hum of sermon and Bible study preparations have garnered my attention for much of my vocational life.

Green, however, has whet my appetite for more of Robert Jenson's theology. Green's focused, brief but meaty companion to Jenson is a good start.