An enthusiastic chronicle of how one woman’s religious passion almost swallowed her whole.
How an overly zealous religious imagination hampered the author’s life.
From a very early age, Rowe, a comedy writer and producer, knew she was a Christian. She had her own Bible complete with commentaries that she spent hours reading and quoting. She tried hard not to sin, and she made sure to be a silent and then direct witness. However, despite her best attempts to accept Jesus as her savior, she always had a nagging sense of doubt that her best efforts were not good enough. She felt that Jesus could “turn on me at any moment; that He is kind until He is not, that He is absolute love until He is absolute vengeance. I know He could effortlessly toss me into hell for all eternity before turning back to nuzzle his beloved sheep—all without messing up His Pantene hair.” Rowe’s obsessive worries about her faith plagued her as a young child, and she takes readers through the years leading up to and through a three-month stint in the evangelical psychiatric center she attended when she was 19. Full of the normal angst that most adolescents experience, Rowe’s stroll down Memory Lane contains the added layer of her religious fanaticism. Her worries about whether she had truly accepted Jesus grew progressively worse as time passed, especially when she reached college and began to date. Love, lust, and religion all comingled in the author’s mind, creating a mixture of stress and fear that made her sick. Rowe is candid throughout the book, giving plenty of details about her psychotic break and of how she began to find her way back to some semblance of balance, supported by her fellow group members in the rehab center. Devotees of Rowe’s comedy and those with a strong interest in born-again Christianity will enjoy learning about her strife and road to redemption.
An enthusiastic chronicle of how one woman’s religious passion almost swallowed her whole.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-59376-659-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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