In that moment, he knew that he was standing in the midst of something that would never be forgotten, something that he would carry from this place and bear for the rest of his life. 

— The Line That Holds Us, p. 26

When Darl Moody drew a bead on what he thought was a wild hog in a patch of ginseng, felt his rifle recoil, and saw his quarry collapse; he clamored to the ridge top to find, not a hog, but a dead man: Carol Brewer, nick-named Sissy, “a half-wit born to a family that Jesus Christ couldn’t have saved.” Both men, the living and the dead, were trespassers and poachers on Coward land. The landowner was away at a family funeral.

About 15 years ago, I was listening to a female critic discussing the seasons’ upcoming movies. When the moderator mentioned Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” the critic laughed and said, a little bitterly, “Well, we’ll all have our knives out for that one.”

When we are in school, we consider ourselves fortunate when we find ourselves in the company of inspiring teachers. We value them at the time, and if they are very good, then they stay with us for the rest of our lives. We may not remember much of what they taught us, but their example can serve to inspire us, to guide us in our lives. We connect with them in the classroom, and that connection, brought about by some magic we can never quite figure out, remains long after we have left behind the world of textbooks and exams.

In a prologue that will make you cry — bringing hackles of guilt to your eyes — Tommy Orange has brought past Native American history front and center and welded it to a story set in present day Oakland, California. “Urban Indians” he refers to his characters and their kin. This is not the Res or  tales told by celebrated Native American authors such as Sherman Alexie and Scott Momaday, but one of urban angst complete with all the modern technology and vibe to which cities are prone. 

Oscar P. Fitzgerald’s American Furniture: 1650 to the Present (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018, 621 pages) is a door-stopper book, a behemoth with well over a thousand photographs, some in color, most black-and-white, and as promised by the title, a history of American furniture and craftsmanship since the time of the thirteen colonies.

The last 10 days have brought some broad swatches of time for reading.

Two novels have traveled from the library, visited my fingers and eyes, and returned to their comrades on the shelves. Will Durant’s The Story of Civilization — I’ve just finished Volume VI: The Reformation — keeps me out of trouble for 30 minutes a day, and old friends like Robert Hartwell Fiske’s The Best Words, Mark Helprin’s A Soldier of the Great War, Nina George’s The Little Paris Bookshop, and Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules For Life offer, as a Coca-Cola ad once put it, “the pause that refreshes.” 

Most of us, of whatever age, by a simple act of memory and willpower can revisit distant summers in our imagination and discover there the bright, shining pleasures of being a child. Trips to the beach, recreating Civil War battles in the woods surrounding my house, playing badminton and roll-the-bat in our side yard: these will remain a part of my interior landscape until death or dementia erases them along with the rest of me.

... never acknowledging that the general culture is often stupid or evil and would vote out God in favor of the devil if he fed them back their hate and fear in a way that made them feel righteous.

 — Varina, page 329

Back in the eighteenth century, England developed a popular form of novel called “picaresque.” Essentially, this name was applied to a novel in which the hero or heroine travels to exotic places where they have exciting adventures. The characters were frequently a bit disreputable but survived in spite of the odds against them. Moll Flanders and Tom Jones were popular examples.  

On my last visit to the public library, I picked up Kathryn Sermak’s Miss D & Me: Life With The Invincible Bette Davis (Hachette Books, 2017, 278 pages). Why this book? I have no idea. I was never a fan of Bette Davis, though I will say “Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?” left me shaken at the age of 12. Though I’ve only seen the film twice, scenes from that tale of deception and horror remain vivid in my mind. (For my younger readers, Bette Davis was a film star from the 1930s to the 1980s and twice won the Academy Award for Best Actress.)

The author of this book is a speech language psychologist and university educator. Now in his sixties, Billy has extensive experience in assisting individuals with intellectual disabilities.  In addition, Ogletree is a Christian writer with an extensive career which includes more than 70 professional articles, chapters and books which speak directly to his primary interest: “the challenging, but cathartic possibilities associated with following Jesus.”