- Paperback: 296 pages
- Publisher: Mariner Books; None edition (Mar 4 1997)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 039585993X
- ISBN-13: 978-0395859933
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.6 x 1.9 cm
- Shipping Weight: 318 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #596,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
If the Civil War pitted brother against brother, the Vietnam War is best understood as pitting father against son. Some of Vietnam's longest lasting battles were fought in heavy rages and even heavier silences across the dinner table. James Carroll is a veteran of many such skirmishes. A novelist now, this book is his story of what it was like to be an anti-war priest in the '60s while his father was an Air Force general deeply involved in Pentagon planning. What makes the book particularly moving is that Carroll comes to realize that his father is no mono-dimensional saber-rattler (indeed, he suspects that his father's military career came to its sudden end because of the stances he took inside the corridors of power against expanding and intensifying the war). But the terrible truth was that neither the father nor the son ever managed to transcend the boundaries of their particular roles to meet each other in a candid, reciprocal relationship. And Carroll is honest--he tells us this, painfully. A very fine book, which along the way reports interestingly on some nearly forgotten '60s episodes.
From Publishers Weekly
Carroll, a novelist (Family Trade), poet and former priest, has written a moving memoir of the effect of the Vietnam War on his family that is at once personal and the story of a generation. His father was an Air Force general who won his stars by being one of the bright lights of the FBI-and a favorite of J. Edgar Hoover-rather than by working his way up through the military. One of Carroll's four brothers dodged the draft in Canada, another was an FBI agent ferreting out draft dodgers and he himself-a former ROTC Cadet of the Year at Georgetown-became an "antiwar" chaplain at Boston University who demonstrated in the streets but ducked the cameras for fear his father might recognize him. Carroll was earmarked from birth to be a priest (his father had trained for the priesthood but dropped out just before ordination) and received personal encouragement from Pope John XXIII and Cardinal Spellman, a family friend. Carroll's heroes evolved from Elvis to Pope John to Martin Luther King, rebel theologian Hans Kung, poet Allen Tate (his mentor) and Eugene McCarthy-most of whom his father considered enemies. After much personal struggle, Carroll left the priesthood, married and became a father, but the break with his own father was never repaired. At once heartbreaking and heroic, this is autobiography at its best.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Of course it's one-sided!,
By ML (Jamaica Plain, MA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us (Paperback)
I was so surprised by reading the few negative reviews of this book that I felt obligated to comment. Yes, his story is one-sided, and no, he doesn't explore his father's perspective much, or what the proponents of war were really thinking. And yes, he obviously feels that he was in the right to protest the war. But this isn't a book about his father, the Catholic Church, and especially not about the Vietnam war. This is simply the story of his life, as he presents it. Like the best of books, you root for the protagonist, you sympathize with him, and sometimes you wish he had done things differently. It is a fascinating, absorbing read and a good glimpse into the spirit of a time that I am too young to know myself. It's also an odd juxtaposition with the current events of our nation at war.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well worth reading, if,
By
This review is from: An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us (Paperback)
If you really want to know about one family's experience with the Vietnam War.Well worth reading if you are a son.Well worth reading if you are a father.I first heard of James Carroll in my adult Sunday School discussion class, and wanted to know more of his thoughts. I chose this as my first book of his. I am glad I did!I was alive, though very young, during the United States' involvement in Vietnam, and had just a child's view. A pacifist child's view, but a child's view.(and yes, as a life (so far!) resident of Kent, Ohio, I experienced a certain amount of protest, including May, 1970.)An American Requiem filled in gaps, and has sparked my thinking and will direct my future reading.James Carroll tried to reconcile with his father, at least, that's how I read this fine, gripping book.Not all parents are always right, and not all children are always wrong.He included a small selection of interesting (mostly family) photographs.I consider my time reading An American Requiem to be time well spent.If it matters at all, I am not a Catholic (I belong to the United Church of Christ,) but find the Roman Catholic Church to be worthy of study and reflection.I hope to eventually meet James Carroll, and would really like to talk about Dads, Sons, and men with him.
1.0 out of 5 stars
About Vietnam?,
By A Customer
This review is from: An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us (Paperback)
I was subjected to this book as part of a reading regimen on the Vietnam War. I find that odd, since, despite the title, Vietnam seems to play very little part in Carroll's narrative. This book is about a man grappling with his faith and with his father, the only two subjects that he really engages in this book. His treatment of the Vietnam War is restricted to his platitudes about its evils and recountings of activities performed. Carroll never really engages the war in any meaningful way, just like he as a person never really engaged his priesthood. The War was treated as a backdrop for the narrative, but it should never be described as a book about Vietnam.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
