Neal Wooten’s powerful memoir, With the Devil’s Help (Simon & Schuster 2022), begins with a knock-knock—and it isn’t a joke. The men in black suits have shown up at four-year-old Neal’s door and want to speak to his father. This is Neal’s introduction—and ours—to a family mystery: who are these men? Why are they threatening […]
“Suburban Gospel,” by Mark Beaver
April 27, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl Mark Beaver’s Suburban Gospel is one more memoir of an adolescent wandering toward adulthood, a Bible Belt Baptist southern version of Roth’s Portnoy but without the gnawing sense of psychological guilt expiated on the analyst’s couch. It is, on the other hand, exuberantly “guilt-edged,” the saga of a young man […]
“Wait Until Tomorrow,” by Pat MacEnulty
July 25, 2012 by 1 Comment
Review by Donna Meredith In Wait Until Tomorrow, Pat MacEnulty drifts back and forth in time to reveal a full, sometimes troubled, and ultimately rewarding relationship with her mother. Just as Rosalind MacEnulty’s love remains steadfast through Pat’s teenage drug addictions and stint in prison, Pat cares for her mother through years of declining health. […]
July Read of the Month: “Blueberry Years,” by Jim Minnick
July 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Jim Minnick’s The Blueberry Years, re-released in paperback a few weeks ago, proclaims itself, in the subtitle, as being a “memoir of farm and family.” And so it is. Yet, while Minnick is too humble to proclaim it as such, it is the reader’s prerogative to make of a book what it really and truly […]
Meet River Jordan, Author of Praying for Strangers
June 15, 2011 by
River Jordan has made a name for herself as a fiction writer and playwright, never dreaming she’d share anything about her personal life to her readers. Now, she’s dared to reach beyond her comfort zone to pen a motivational memoir, Praying for Strangers. I wish I had read it prior to May, so that I could […]
Meet Mark Richard, Author of June Read of the Month – House of Prayer No. 2
June 2, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Award-winning author, Mark Richard, graciously took time to discuss his memoir, House of Prayer No. 2, which was selected as the SLR June Read of the Month. We hope you enjoy reading the fascinating conversation between Richard and SLR editor-in-chief, Julie Cantrell. SLR: What I love about this book the most is that my high school […]