Lone Journey by Jeanette Eaton

Jan19


Lone Journey: The Life of Roger Williams by Jeanette Eaton. Illustrated by Woodi Ishmael.

Four of Jeanette Eaton’s books received the Newbery Honor (runner-up), but her books, mostly biographies for young adults, never won the Newbery Medal. Lone Journey was published in 1944, and was a Newbery Honor book in 1945.

I found the book quite fascinating in its portrait of a man who was ahead of his times in many ways. Roger Williams began life in an orthodox Church of England family, became a Puritan as a youth, and then moved on to become a separatist and a dissenter who certainly preached and believed in Christ but eschewed all churches and denominations as holding undue sway and authority over the conscience of the individual. Williams, according to the book, made a life study of government and the relationship of church and state, and he came to the conclusion that the civil authority and the church were to be wholly separate, ruling in different spheres, and that the individual conscience before God was to reign supreme in matters of religion.

Betsy-Bee just read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter for her English class, and we had a good discussion of which of God’s laws were to be enforced by the state (laws against murder and theft and others of what Williams would call “civil crimes”), which laws should be enforced by the church upon church members (laws against gossip, profanity, adultery, and other sins, perhaps?), and which laws were up to the individual before God. Or should the church become involved at all when its members sin against one another? How should the church discipline its members, if it does?

The Massachusetts Bay colony and its leaders eventually banished Roger Williams, but his exile turned out to be a blessing in disguise, even though it entailed much hardship, since he was able to found a colony in which:

“We have no law among us, whereby to punish any for only declaring by words theire mindes and understandings concerning the things and ways of God.”

In a letter to a friend, Roger Williams wrote of the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations:

” . . . We have long drunk of the cup of as great liberties as any people that we can hear of under the whole heaven. We have not only long been free (together with a New England) from the iron yolk of wolfish bishops, and their popish ceremonies, but we have sitten quiet and dry from the streams of good spilt by that war in our native country.
We have not felt the new chains of the Presbyterian tyrants, not in this colony have we been consumed with the over-zealous fire of the (so-called) godly christian magistrates. Sir, we have not known what an exise means; we have almost forgotten what tithes are, yea or taxes either, to church or commonwealth.”

Williams was a friend to the native Americans of the colony, and he led the colony to accept both Quakers and Jews as full citizens with the rights to vote and own land. He was a preacher and a practitioner of religious liberty for all, and it is from Roger Williams and others who followed in his footsteps that we learned many of the principles that eventually went into the U.S. Constitution and became enshrined in American government and culture. This biography is somewhat fictionalized, with dialog that is obviously made up, but the events of Roger Williams’s life are faithfully chronicled, as far as I could tell.

Jeanette Eaton was a prolific biographer, and she wrote biographies of all of the following persons over the course of her career:

A Daughter of the Seine: The Life of Madame Roland (1929) (Newbery Honor 1930)
Jeanne d’Arc, the Warrior Saint (1931)
The Flame, Saint Catherine of Sienna (1931)
Young Lafayette (1932)
Betsy’s Napoleon (1936)
Leader By Destiny: George Washington, Man and Patriot (1938) (Newbery Honor 1939)
Narcissa Whitman: Pioneer of Oregon (1941)
Lone Journey: The Life of Roger Williams (1944) (Newbery Honor 1945)
David Livingstone, Foe of Darkness (1947)
That Lively Man, Ben Franklin (1948)
Buckley O’Neill of Arizona (1949)
Washington, the Nation’s First Hero (1951)
Gandhi, Fighter Without a Sword (1950) (Newbery Honor 1951)
Lee, the Gallant General (1953)
The Story of Eleanor Roosevelt (1954)
Trumpeter’s Tale: The Story of Young Louis Armstrong (1955)
America’s Own Mark Twain (1958)

Wikipedia calls Eaton a “suffragist” and a “feminist”, but judging from the subjects of her books, she also had an interest in religion and religious leaders.

Woodi Ishmael, whose woodcut illustrations, grace the pages of Ms. Eaton’s book, seems to have been a rather successful World War II era illustrator, producing numerous advertisements and drawings and paintings for the armed forces, especially the Air Force. You can look at some of his Air Force artwork here. And here’s a blog post that shows several of Mr. Ishmael’s illustrations for another Eaton bio, Narcissa Whitman.

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Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink

Jan17


Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink.

Warning: this book is deeply disturbing. After reading it, I became even more distrustful of doctors and of the medical profession than I was before I read the book. I also lost some confidence in the government and in the justice system (already low). I decided to buy a small generator as soon as possible if I can afford to since we live on the Gulf coast in hurricane country. I thought about end-of-life decisions and hospitals and who to depend on in an emergency. I was reminded of how thankful I am for my sister who came to Texas and spent many weeks caring for my mother last year when she had to go to the hospital and then into a rehab facility. I’m not sure anymore that it is safe to be in a hospital without a family member nearby who will spend time at the hospital with you daily—and at night.

So, Five Days at Memorial is the story of the five days after Hurricane Katrina as they were experienced at Memorial Medical Center (formerly Baptist Hospital) in New Orleans. As you might imagine, or you may have seen or heard news reports, conditions at the hospital went from bad to worse in the wake of the storm. Hospital employees, doctors, nurses, and patients who were stranded at the hospital, surrounded by flood waters and rumors of riots and violence outside, began to think that they had been abandoned. Rescue was slow to come. Information going in and out of the hospital was confused and intermittent. Patients died. The question woven throughout the book is: did they die because of Hurricane Katrina and the lack of government or corporate response to emergency conditions, or did some of the patients die because doctors and nurses gave up hope and decided to euthanize them, “put them out of their misery”?

I’ve thought about what I might do to care for myself and my family in the event of a major crisis such as a hurricane. I’ve thought about the hard end-of-life decisions that health care professionals and families have to make together and about how those decisions could be made easier and more loving and kind to all involved. I’ve thought about how doctors and nurses can sway patients and family members to make decisions that meet with the professionals’ ethics but perhaps not the family’s. And I’ve thought about journalistic ethics, and how a writer of true-life stories can show us a story as the journalist sees it, but not necessarily give full credence and weight to all sides of the story. I think Ms. Fink tried to see all of the possibilities and complications of this particular event and present them fairly, but then again, I wasn’t there.

As I said, it’s a difficult book to read. There are stories of great courage and perseverance, but there are also questions, many disturbing questions. When evacuating a hospital with a range of patients from ambulatory to critically ill with probably very little time to live, who goes first? What is the purpose of triage, and who decides which people will be given the best chance to survive? What is the ethical basis for those decisions? What is a health professional’s responsibility in a crisis? Are doctors and nurses obligated to sacrifice their own well-being, perhaps their lives, for their patients? How can hospitals be better prepared for a crisis? How much should hospitals and other public service agencies spend on preparing for a crisis that may never materialize? What is the government’s role in protecting the public and preparing for an emergency? What is the responsibility of the health care corporation that owns the hospital or nursing home? Many, many more questions, and some answers, are embedded in this very personal story about what happened in a hospital in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

I would recommend that all people involved in health care professions, especially in hospitals, read this book. You may or may not agree with the author’s conclusions, but you will be given lots of food for thought—and even prayer.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.

Saturday Review of Books: January 16, 2015

Jan16

“I like libraries. It makes me feel comfortable and secure to have walls of words, beautiful and wise, all around me. I always feel better when I can see that there is something to hold back the shadows.” ~Roger Zelazny

SatReviewbutton

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Here’s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read.

You can go to this post for over 100 links to book lists for the end of 2014/beginning of 2015. Feel free to add a link to your own list.

If you enjoy the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon, please invite your friends to stop by and check out the review links here each Saturday.

More 2015 Titles I’d Like to Read

Jan15

From these lists (Thanks, Phil) and other sources:

All Fall Down by Ally Carter. YA fiction. Grace has come back home to Embassy Row in order to solve the mystery of her mother’s death. In the process, she uncovers an international conspiracy of unsettling proportions, and must choose her friends and watch her foes carefully if she and the world are to be saved. (January)

Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan. “Lost and alone a forbidden forest, Otto meets three mysterious sisters and suddenly finds himself entwined in a puzzling quest involving a prophecy, a promise, and a harmonica.” ~Goodreads. (February)

Beastkeeper by Cat Hellisen. Beaty and the Beast, except the Beast is a girl. (February)

Mark of the Thief by Jennifer A. Nielsen. First book in a new series, set in ancient Rome, by the author of The Ascendance Trilogy. (February)

Epitaph by Mary Doria Russell. Subtitled “a novel of the O.K. Corral,” continuing the story she began in Doc. (March)

The Drop Box: How 500 Abandoned Babies, an Act of Compassion, and a Movie Changed My Life by Brian Ivie with Ted Kluck. (March)

The Island of Dr. Libris by Chris Grabenstein. (March) MG fantasy by the author of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library.

Jack: The True Story of Jack & The Beanstalk by Liesl Shurliff. (April) MG fantasy.

The Water and the Wild by K.E. Ormsbee. (April) MG fantasy.

It’s A Long Story by Willie Nelson. Memoir. (May) Willie’s memoir.

The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest by Melanie Dickerson. Robin Hood-character is a really a girl named Odette, daughter of a wealthy merchant by day, huntress by night. (May)

The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings by Philip and Carol Zaleski. The husband-and-wife team chronicle the writers’ group The Inklings, whose members featured J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. (June)

Valiant by Sarah McGuire. Fairy tale reworking with a girl heroine. (June)

Help My Unbelief: Why Doubt Is Not The Enemy Of Faith by Barnabas Piper. (July)

The Hollow Boy (Lockwood & Co. #3) by Jonathan Stroud. (September)

Fooling Houdini by Alex Stone

Jan13


Fooling Houdini: Magicians, Mentalists, Math Geeks and the Hidden Powers of the Mind by Alex Stone.

I think I heard about this book on NPR; I’ve had it on my TBR list for a while. I’m glad I finally got around to it because it definitely gave me some things to think about.

First of all, I’ll issue a disclaimer or a warning: a couple of pages in the book are about Mr. Stone’s rather uninformed opinion that Jesus was probably “a magician, and that the gospel miracles—water into wine, multiplying loaves, levitation—were stage tricks drawn from the conjuror’s repertoire.” This superficial evaluation of the miracles of Christ only lasts for a few paragraphs, thankfully, and then Mr. Stone is back to writing about what he knows: the world of legerdemain, illusion, and prestidigitation.

Ninety-nine percent of this book is about modern-day magicians, mentalists, con men, card sharps, and other performers and about how they learn to do what they do. Mr. Stone, to the undoubted dismay of some of his fellow magicians, even reveals some of the secrets of the trade, but not all of them. As he tells about his journey through the world of Magic Olympics (really, there is such a thing), and Las Vegas magic shows, and monte mobs on Canal Street in NYC, psychics and telepaths, and neuroscience research, not to mention clown school, Mr. Stone describes a labyrinthine world of swamis and sages, con artists and card counters, that is “shrouded in secrecy, fueled by obsession and brilliance.”

Show me a world where real people focus their lives and talents on a consuming pursuit or passion, and I’m hooked. I’ve read books, fiction and nonfiction, that introduced me to other communities and subcultures where people spend their lives immersed in a game or a hobby or an interest or a place or even an occupation that it never would have occurred to me to even notice:

The World of Hotel Management: Hotel by Arthur Hailey.
The World of Competitive Scrabble: Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis.
The World of Horse-Racing: Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand.
The World of a Super-Rich Eccentric: Empty Mansions by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr.
The World of Competitive Rowing: The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown.
The World of Friday Night Football: Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger.
The World of Poverty in Mumbai: Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo.
The World of ICU in Hospitals: Coma by Robin Cook.
The World of Scientology: Going Clear by Lawrence Wright.
The World of a Prison Library: Running the Books by Avi Steinberg.
The World of Ethiopian Adoption: There Is No Me Without You by Melissa Greene.
The World of Chinese Food: The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: A Book Adventure through the Mysteries of Chinese Food by Jennifer 8. Lee
The World of Computer Geekdom: The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder.
The World of Fifth Grade: Among Schoolchildren by Tracy Kidder.
The World of a Mental Hospital: Gracefully Insane by Alex Beam.
The World of Mormon Polygamy: When Men Become Gods by Stephen Singular.
The World of Chocolate: Hershey by Michael D’Antonio.

I didn’t even include all of the historical “worlds” and the exotic, foreign places I’ve visited in books. Books truly can take us to so many places, times, subcultures, and worlds, and I am so thankful to be able to travel into these worlds through the books I read. I enjoyed Fooling Houdini‘s description of the world of magic and its discussions of the ethics of deception and performance and fiction and trickery. The authors draws interesting distinctions between a performance in which the magician and his audience collaborate in some conscious or subconscious way to create a fiction and puzzle that is fun for everyone involved and the deception that so-called mentalists and mind readers foist upon unsuspecting and gullible people who are looking for comfort and for something to believe in.

As I said, the book was thought-provoking. Anyone who’s at all interested in performing magic or in the techniques and practices of magic performers will find Fooling Houdini indispensable.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.

Blood Will Out by Walter Kirn

Jan12


Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and a Masquerade by Walter Kirn.

Author Walter Kirn wants his readers to know that he is a published novelist, a graduate of Princeton, and a very intelligent man. The importance of these qualifications will become clear as the story progresses.

Blood Will Out purports to tell the story of Clark Rockefeller, aka Chris C. Crowe, aka Chris Chichester, aka Charles Smith, aka Chip Smith. His real name is Christian Gerhartsreiter, a German national who came to the United States illegally in 1978, obtained citizenship by marrying and then deserting an American citizen, moved to Hollywood to become an actor, and eventually in 1985 murdered his landlady’s adopted son and possibly the victim’s wife. Mr. Gerhartsreiter then moved back to the East Coast, New York City, and became Clark Rockefeller, a rich young banker and art collector with ties to the famous family with the same surname. Clark Rockefeller married Sandy Boss, a high-paid business executive, lived on his wife’s earnings, and moved to New Hampshire. He and his wife had a child, but they eventually divorced when Sandy found out that “Clark” wasn’t who he said he was. Rockefeller/Gerhartsreiter then tried to kidnap his own daughter, got sent to jail for that, and was indicted for the 1985 murder in California. Christian Gerhartsreiter was

Most of the facts in the preceding paragraph I gleaned from Wikipedia. Mr. Kirn’s book includes a few of the facts, buried deep or mentioned in passing, but the majority of the book seems to be about Walter Kirn and his very strange, very conflicted friendship with the subject, Christian Gerhartsreiter. Kirn is deeply distressed over the idea that Gerhartsreiter conned him. How could a criminal like CG deceive a Princeton graduate and published author? As far as I could tell, Mr. Kirn lost the price of a few meals that Gerhartsreiter stiffed him for, a trip to New York from Montana to deliver a dog that he feels he was underpaid for, and a lot of time listening to CG’s stories and lies. Yet, Kirn says of himself and CG, late in the book after all has been revealed, “He (CG) knew a perfect victim when he saw one, and I’d sacrificed myself for him before.”

Sacrificed himself? “I was part of his audience, he thought. But in truth I was acting much of the time. He was conning me, but I was also conning him. The liar and murderer and heaven knows what else was correct about the writer: I betrayed him.” Kirn says he “betrayed” CG by writing book about him. I say Kirn betrays himself, in that the book is mainly about Walter Kirn. Maybe that’s because there had to be a book (finances? a contract?), and no one, not Kirn nor anyone else, understood what Christian Gerhartsreiter was all about, what all he did, or why he did it.

“All my questions drew the same response from him, just phrased in different ways. His evil was his prodigious, devouring appetite for other people’s vitality and time, which he consumed with words, words, words, words, words. Clark loved to talk but had nothing much to say, nothing of his own, which was surely another reason that he lied, and plagiarized lies, and recycled his old lies. He had ten thousand ways to tell you nothing. I felt like I’d heard all of them.”

The book is like CG’s lies: interesting for a while, somewhat sordid, but strangely empty and dissatisfying in the end. The topic of lies and deception is one that is much talked and written about recently, both in fiction and nonfiction. This Literature of Deception speaks to something within all of us that recognizes our own fabrications and false images and yet longs to know and trust others and to be truly known and trustworthy. I’m not sure I learned anything about how we get to a place of deceiving others and ultimately ourselves from reading this book. Nor did I gain any insight into how we break free of the lies that so easily entangle us.

There is another 2012 book about CG, The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: The Astonishing Rise and Spectacular Fall of a Serial Impostor by Mark Seal. Perhaps that book is more weighted toward fact and story and motivation and less toward amateur self-analysis. If you’re interested in knowing more about “serial imposter” Christian Gerhartsreiter, what he did and maybe even why he did it, I’d suggest you try that book first, although I’ve not read it and so can’t give a definitive recommendation.

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Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give In by Louis Zamperini and David Rensin

Jan11


Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give In: Lessons from an Extraordinary Life by Louis Zamperini and David Rensin.

“I survived the war, but then I had to survive myself coming home from the war. Despite the good times and all the attention, I was under a cloud that kept growing darker. I had nightmares about killing the Bird from which I woke up shouting and swearing. My running legs were gone and I couldn’t compete anymore, which broke my heart. I wanted to strike it rich, but lost money instead. I drank and fought. I knew I was on the wrong path—but didn’t know what to do about it.” ~Louis Zamperini

If the movie Unbroken, or even what you’ve heard about the movie or the book by Laura Hillenbrand, is your only acquaintance with Louis Zamperini, then you already know that he was an amazing man with an almost unbelievable life story. What you may not know is what Paul Harvey used to call The Rest of the Story.

I would suggest that anyone who was captivated by Mr. Zamperini’s story in the movie should immediately, without delay, beg, borrow, or steal a copy of Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. If you just aren’t a reader and can’t bring yourself to read that wonderful biography, then Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give In tells the rest of Louis Zamperini’s story in a much shorter format, 224 pages laid out in easy to read chunks or chapter of three or four pages each. If you’ve already read Unbroken, but can’t get your friends or family members to read it, give them a copy of this book. Louis Zamperini’s character, warmth, and wisdom shine through the pages here just as they did in the pages of Unbroken.

David Rensin, who had already worked with Mr. Zamperini on his autobiography Devil at My Heels, met with Zamperini again for about six months to complete this book because Louis said he still had stories he wanted to tell. The stories in the book, which was completed two days before Mr. Zamperini died on July 2, 2014, continue to illuminate the life of this man who not only was a hero, but also a very broken and vengeful man after his return from prison camp. In Unbroken Laura Hillenbrand tells what it was that made Louis Zamperini whole again, in her words. In this book Mr. Zamperini gets to tell us about his recovery in his own words.

“I had nothing left to lose.
That admission itself was the beginning of my recovery. I’d always known that I’d come home from the war with a problem, but I had never been willing to ask for help—from anyone.
But now I had, and my whole body and spirit felt different. Wonderful. Calm. Free.”

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Short Takes on Middle Grade Speculative Fiction

Jan10

The Winter of the Robots by Kurtis Scaletta
Mr. Scaletta’s previous books, Mudville and Mamba Point, were both good solid middle grade reads, and The Winter of the Robots continues on in that groove. If your child is into robots or robot wars or science-y adventure tales, then The Winter of the Robots is a just the ticket. I got lost in some of the science of how to build and operate a robot, and I had to believe pretty hard to swallow some of the events that take place in the novel (kids build a self-propelled robot out of an old car?), but I bet most kids could believe it without even stretching.

Ninja Librarians: The Accidental Keyhand by Jen Swann Downey. I like the idea of secret society of “lybrarians” who are given the task of making the world, past and present, safe for the written word and the free expression of ideas. And I liked the opening two paragraphs a lot:

“Twelve-year-old Dorothea Barnes was thoroughly un-chosen, not particularly deserving, bore no marks of destiny, lacked any sort of criminal genius, and could claim no supernatural relations. Furthermore, she’d never been orphaned, kidnapped, left for dead in the wilderness, or bitten by anything more bloodthirsty than her little sister.
Don’t even begin to entertain consoling thoughts of long flaxen curls or shiny tresses black as ravens’ wings. Dorrie’s plain brown hair could only be considered marvelous in its ability to twist itself into hopeless tangles. She was neither particularly tall or small, thick or thin, pale or dark. She had parents who loved her, friends enough, and never wanted for a meal. So, why, you may wonder, tell a story about a girl like this at all?”

However, the story sort of meanders along and doesn’t get much better than that opening gambit.

The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare. This Harry Potter-ish novel about a boy who is sent to magic school to learn to control his magical abilities is well written and intriguing, but the ending is horrendous. After another episode in which a different character lies about being abused by a teacher, our hero ends up concealing a secret so horrible that he cannot tell anyone about it, believing that his very soul is evil, and that no one will help him or believe him or love him if he tells. That’s creepy and disturbing.

The Twistrose Key by Tone Almhjell. This Norwegian fantasy is written by a Norwegian author, but I don’t see any translator credit. So I suppose it was written in English. Nevertheless, there’s a culture gap as far as I’m concerned. Lindelin Rosenquist (lovely name) is the Twistrose (rosa torquata), sent to the land of Sylver to save the Petlings and Wilders there from imminent danger. However, she and her own special petling, Rufocanus, a redback vole, spend a lot of time wandering about and getting into fixes, then taking turns rescuing one another. They talk about having a plan, but the plan is rather muddled, and various characters show up and disappear randomly. I think I missed something in the non-translation, but maybe other readers will be able to think more Scandinavian than I do.

The Islands of Chaldea by Diana Wynne Jones and Ursula Jones. Aileen and her Aunt Beck, the most powerful Wise Woman on the island of Skarr, are sent on a journey to rescue a prince. The characters in this novel do nothing but argue and undermine one another while they travel on a mission that none of them really believes in. The arguing isn’t even witty or funny. It’s a posthumous novel, completed by Ursula Jones (Diana Wynne Jones’ sister). I think the idea had potential, but someone dropped the ball.

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These books were also nominated for a Cybil Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

Saturday Review of Books: January 9, 2015

Jan9

” The aura of a book I have yet to read, with its promise of rapture, surprise and edification, might be even more powerful than the aura of a book I have read, enjoyed and duly forgotten.” ~Jeff Salamanacters

SatReviewbutton

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Here’s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read.

You can go to this post for over 100 links to book lists for the end of 2014.beginning of 2015. Feel free to add a link to your own list.

Empty Mansions by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr.

Jan9


Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr.

Many things about this book are odd, beginning with the co-authors. One of the authors is the subject’s second cousin, or some such relation. He must have been involved in some way, at least as a witness to Huguette’s mental state, in the controversy that broke out after Huguette’s death about her will and the disposition of her fortune. Yet, he is a co-author of this book that purports to be an objective view of the many controversies surrounding Huguette’s life and death. (The introduction notes that Mr. Newell was not in line to inherit any of Huguette Clark’s fortune.)

Then, there’s Huguette Clark herself. Born in 1906, Huguette Clark lived for 105 years. She was heiress to a fortune made by her father W.A. Clark in copper mining, railroads and other enterprises. Ms. Clark, married only briefly and soon divorced, became a recluse as an adult and spent her final twenty years living in a hospital in New York City, not because she was ill but because she felt safe there. She gave her day nurse, Hadassah Peri, millions of dollars in cash and gifts while she was still alive and left the same nurse millions in her will. She spent most of her adult life painting, taking photographs, playing with dolls, and designing dollhouses. She liked to watch cartoons, analyzing them frame by frame, particularly The Smurfs, The Flintstones, and The Jetsons. She kept two uninhabited mansions that she never visited, one in California and another in Connecticut, in mint condition with millions of dollars paid to caretakers and taxes over the years. She was, in her own words, “a little peculiar.”

Despite the copious research that certainly informed this book about a reclusive heiress and her family background, the authors are unable to answer the question that most interested me: why was Huguette Clark so reclusive and almost afraid of new people and strangers and yet so generous to certain particular people in her life? She gave millions of dollars to her day nurse, and yet she was unwilling to give her phone number to her cousin. Nevertheless, even though I din’t really understand Huguette Clark much better after I read the entire book about her life, it was still thought-provoking to to try. What does great inherited wealth do to a person’s psyche? Is it different if you inherited the money than it would be if you earned it? Was Huguette simply a fragile, anxiety-ridden person who figured out the best strategy for handling her fears and insecurities?

I also wanted to know at the end of the book what happened to Ms. Clark’s money? The dispute over Huguette Clark’s will had not been settled at the time of the publication of Empty Mansions. Wikipedia to the rescue:

On September 24, 2013, the will was finally settled with the majority of the distant relatives receiving a total of $34 million. The nurse received nothing, and agreed to return $5 million of the earlier $31 million gifts to her and her family. The bulk of the substantial remainder went to the arts, including the gift of her estate in Santa Barbara to a new foundation, called the Bellosguardo Foundation.

Was she happy with her dolls and cartoons and empty mansions? Or was she as empty as her houses, with the dolls and dollhouse projects only a distraction from the emptiness of her life? I rather think the latter, but only God can judge a life. I’m certainly not sure after reading this true story that being a millionaire is all it’s cracked up to be.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.