Memoirs to remember...

I love memoirs.  There is something to be said for understanding others' life experiences to make you more empathetic and educated.  You can be transported to another time and place or simply another place by a contemporary.   You can't go wrong with any of these memoirs, but read about them each individually since they are quite different and may appeal to unique audiences.

After Visiting Friends: A Son's Story by Michael Hainey (2013)

This page-turner of a memoir reads like a mystery though it is the life story of the author's father, or moreso the story of his death.  The author is a reporter, like his father before him.  The details surrounding his father's death, as fed to him by family, non-existent.  When he delves deeper and finds contradictory obituaries, he begins a search for the truth.  But what he encounters is a wall of silence by the old boys network and learns more than just how his father died, but how he lived and even more about his beloved mother.  Most likely one of the best books of 2013.


Rapture Practice: My One Way Ticket to Salvation by Aaron Hartzler (2013)

Hartzler grew up with the expectation that at any minute, Jesus could return to earth and sweep away believers, leaving behind those who were not saved.  A scary way for a child to live, but also exhilarating.  Until it wasn't.  He loved his parents, but also knew, as a teen attending parochial school and then an even more fundamentalist evangelical parochial school, he had to lie to his father to be allowed to listen to his beloved unsanctioned music, like Amy Grant, because she wasn't 'Christian enough.'

Rapture Practice chronicles Hartzler's upbringing and adolescence in a fundamentalist world where if you spared the rod you spoiled the child.  So, simply going to the movies as a teen is a rebellious outing that his parents cannot discover.  There was no television in his home for the corruption it would bring was unfathomable.  And when he questioned his faith, he had to do it alone for there was no one to whom he could openly speak about his doubts.

A wonderfully honest memoir about faith, friends and family, Hartzler shares a world most of us know little about in a way that shocks, but also with love and care for the family that raised him.


Stuck in the Middle With You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan (2013)

In a world where gays and lesbians are slowly being better understood and accepted, transexual and transgendered individuals are still terribly misunderstood and discriminated against.  Finney Boylan, a Colby professor and prolific writer, is a wonderful advocate for transgendered people since she is bright, articulate and open about her trials, tribulations and joys throughout her journey from James to Jennifer.

In Stuck, she shares her family life and how transitioning from being a male, where she never truly felt 'herself,' and a father to her two sons with wife Deedie, changed her as a parent when she became, "Maddy," another mother to her two sons, miraculously maintaining an intact family unit with Deedie when many families break up with far less stress and change.

The book builds bridges of understanding, not just of the Finney Boylan family and their struggles, but between those who didn't comprehend or wanted to learn more about the transgender experience when a full gender reassignment is undergone as well as how it affects lives when more than just the individual is involved.  The strengths in the book lie in Finney Boylan's writing and narration and less so the interviews with others brought in to share experiences.  But I find her so interesting, in addition to wife Deedie, that I would read more from just the two of them.

Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian's Pilgrimage in Search of God in America by Jeff Chu (2013)

Jeff Chu struggled with the apparent dichotomy of his homosexuality and the Christian teaching that it was a sin.  But his faith was strong.  Strong as his sexual orientation, and he went off in a search to determine whether there was a way to reconcile the two.

He embarks upon investigative reporting throughout America to determine whether a Christian can be gay and accepted in the faith.  His research ran the gamut from hate group, Westboro Baptist Church to the Episcopal Church filled with love and acceptance. He was fair-minded and open to all opinions.  It became a matter of  interpretation and beliefs.  The personal stories in the book were quite poignant.   If you are interested in the Christian gay experience in America, this book is certainly one worth exploring.

I read therefore I am,
the lowercase b