"Someone gave me this book. I got 100 pages in and can’t go further. The author’s point is that the decline of marriage, churches and community in certain (rural) places is leading people (mostly white men) to feel alienated in America. The author somehow misses the fact that African Americans, women and LGBTQ people (among others) haven’t been empowered to form, participate in or keep relationships and community in the way they see fit for the vast majority of our country’s history and have had to deal with the ramifications of this for centuries. So welcome to the alienated club!"

"Quite an ironic book. Fighting superstition with superstition. And replacing collectivism with collectivism. Or shorter: we should be ruled by "our" people not "their" people."

"4+��
In these autobiographical pages the author delves into his heartbreaking childhood at the mercy of a brutal father and his four years as point guard for the Citadel basketball team through its final losing season. It's a true life coming of age tale recounting how the game helped him become the man who wanted to be the writer. He describes his book as “an act of recovery�� and explains how "losing prepares you for the heartbreak, setback, and tragedy that you will encounter in the world more than winning ever can.�� It is also a window into his earlier fiction based on his military father’s cruel parenting but without the softer sides added to make the books more palatable. This is a the truth will set you free rendering and it’s horrific to bear witness to in parts.

"As a boy, I had constructed a shell for myself so impenetrable that I have been trying to write my way out of it for over thirty years, and even now I fear I have barely cracked its veneer. It is as rouged and polished and burnished as the specialized glass of telescopes, and it kept me hidden from the appraising eyes of the outside world long into manhood. But most of all it kept me hidden and safe from myself ... Several times in my life I have gone crazy, and I could not even begin to tell you why. The sadness collapses me from the inside out, and I have to follow the thing through until it finishes with me.��

There is a lot of the sport detailed in its pages and since I am not a fan it did get tedious in parts, but the personal recollections and purpose behind it transform this into a worthy reading experience with plenty of five star passages.

Thank you and RIP Mr. Conroy. Your books have a special place in my heart.

"