bookpagedev

Taking a giant leap

Review by bookpagedev

Steve Farber’s The Radical Leap: A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership is a business parable thinly disguised as a mystery novel. Written in first person, the book follows a consultant named Steve (obviously the author, also a leadership consultant) who is asked by a friend to track down her MIA CEO. During his half-hearted search, which involves looking up the CEO’s name in the phone book, Steve encounters a beach bum named Edg who reveals the L.E.A.P. (love, energy, audacity, proof) concept and shares the value of the OS!M (oh shit! moment) in leadership development.

The story is contrived but the definition of an extreme leader as one who cultivates love, generates energy, inspires audacity and provides proof is interesting. And who knows? The challenge to love what you do might help readers renew the excitement in their daily lives.

 

Steve Farber's The Radical Leap: A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership is a business parable thinly disguised as a mystery novel. Written in first person, the book follows a consultant named Steve (obviously the author, also a leadership consultant) who is asked by a…

Fiction

After the fall

Review by bookpagedev

Jay McInerney’s The Good Life joins the body of fiction grappling with the events of September 11, 2001, and the various landscapes literal, personal, political forever altered by that day. McInerney (Bright Lights, Big City) focuses his attention largely on Corinne Calloway and Luke McGavock, two strangers who have an otherworldly encounter in the early hours of September 12, then meet again as volunteers in a impromptu soup kitchen serving the needs of Ground Zero workers. Corinne, a would-be screenwriter (significantly of Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter) whose twins are the result of a tangled fertility story, has become a connoisseur of guilt, battling marital lethargy and money concerns. Luke has given up his lucrative job with vague notions of writing a book and becoming closer to his wife, a professional beauty, and teenaged daughter.

Although the attacks have made unlikely people more proximate in some cases, Corinne is able to get a spot in the soup kitchen only because she knows the right person: [e]veryone wanted to volunteer, to get close, to work off the shock, to feel useful, to observe the carnage, to help. Favors are called in to get tours of Ground Zero. A publisher colleague of Corinne’s husband talks of get[ting] in the nine/eleven business ; he worries about a 9/11 widow being agented up already. It’s no surprise when Corinne and Luke become good friends and ultimately fall in love, despite what Corinne recognizes is really a kind of wartime intimacy, the kind of camaraderie of strangers in a lifeboat. As New York City struggles to regain some kind of normalcy, Luke and Corinne wrestle with whether to return to the lives they had before.

The Good Life is suffused with a deep sadness that is as much individual as collective and that has everything to do with the difference between the good life and a good life, and how good people make that distinction. Joanne Collings writes from Washington, D.C.

Jay McInerney's The Good Life joins the body of fiction grappling with the events of September 11, 2001, and the various landscapes literal, personal, political forever altered by that day. McInerney (Bright Lights, Big City) focuses his attention largely on Corinne Calloway and Luke McGavock,…

Chief Executive Animals

Review by bookpagedev

While there’s simply no comparison to the classic Animal Farm, Kenneth A. Tucker and Vandana Allman’s Animals, Inc. is full of clever wordplay and funny, lovable characters. The team that created the bestsellers First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths tells the story of what happens on the farm after Farmer Goode moves on to Greener Pasture Retirement. After considering relocating to a petting zoo, the animals decide to take a stab at running the farm themselves and elect Mo the pig Chief Executive Animal. Mo reads the latest and greatest business books (except, of course, Bringing Home the Bacon), but his well-meaning attempts at adopting competency exams, stock options and extensive employee training fail dismally. After rule #5 “Everyone should be well rounded” is painted on the side of the barn, the Scarecrow is promoted to laying eggs in the henhouse while the crow is put in charge of protecting the fields. The moral is clear: Put people in jobs that make the most of their strengths, then give them support and recognition. It’s a simple concept, and the animals make it easy to see and understand the importance of managing a diversity of skills and talents.

While there's simply no comparison to the classic Animal Farm, Kenneth A. Tucker and Vandana Allman's Animals, Inc. is full of clever wordplay and funny, lovable characters. The team that created the bestsellers First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths tells the…

Asleep at the table

Review by bookpagedev

Best-selling author Patrick Lencioni’s latest book, Death by Meeting, does double duty as a fast-paced page-turner and an allegory addressing a problem everyone can relate to: boring meetings. In this fictional tale, a struggling CEO hires a family friend who is, no joke, off his meds. The young newcomer shakes things up, transforming the company’s interminable weekly meetings by adding drama and conflict and giving them structure (daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly). After the story ends, Lencioni explains how to implement his ideas to improve real-world meetings.

Best-selling author Patrick Lencioni's latest book, Death by Meeting, does double duty as a fast-paced page-turner and an allegory addressing a problem everyone can relate to: boring meetings. In this fictional tale, a struggling CEO hires a family friend who is, no joke, off…
Cookbooks

Changing the taste of dinnertime

Review by bookpagedev

Former Newsweek writer Laura Shapiro continues her exploration of America’s relationship with food in Something From the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America. Part women’s studies, part cultural study, Shapiro’s entertaining and enlightening book charts a revolution in food creation and preparation. Ready-made food proponents were baffled when their “wave of the future” failed to catch on immediately. After all, didn’t women hate to cook? (Surveys from the 1950s show that, in fact, cooking was consistently among the top two favorite household chores.) This food was easy to make, and, often, cheaper than fresh alternatives. What manufacturers didn’t realize was that while prepared foods (which originated from soldiers’ rations during World War II) were definitely time-savers, quality and taste varied, and it was difficult to find a place for them within America’s strong notions about cooking for the family. Cooking was an integral part of the “perfect wife” package, and women who used pre-packaged foods even those as commonplace as instant coffee were perceived by their peers as lazy. Advertisers fought back. Prepared foods, they proclaimed, made gourmet taste accessible to the everyday cook. Soon, food writers began incorporating this message into their recipes. Shapiro comes to a different conclusion. Far from liberating cooks, pre-packaged foods were often another way of restricting them, changing cooking from an enterprise where the cook had the power to a practice devoid of creativity, a step-by-step, follow-the-rules procedure. Still, pre-packaged foods were seen as the way forward. It wasn’t until the publication of two seminal works Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique and Julia Child’s The French Chef that cooking would regain its equilibrium and offer choice once again. Shapiro’s comprehensive study of a watershed moment in America’s past evokes the paradoxes of post-war life, and makes the reader contemplate the history behind the question, “what’s for dinner?”

Former Newsweek writer Laura Shapiro continues her exploration of America's relationship with food in Something From the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America. Part women's studies, part cultural study, Shapiro's entertaining and enlightening book charts a revolution in food creation and preparation. Ready-made food proponents…
History

Lincoln’s enduring message of hope

Review by bookpagedev

<B>Lincoln’s enduring message of hope</B> In his magnificent new work, <B>November: Lincoln’s Elegy at Gettysburg</B>, author Kent Gramm explains his unusual interpretation of the most celebrated speech in American history, delivered on November 19, 1863. November is nature’s elegy, he writes. Let the month itself stand for grief and faith, a gray month of blank sky and cold winds, beginning in remembrance and ending in expectation a month through whose strange beauty we all must pass and whose alien work must truly be our own. Over 24 chapters, he describes a month in Gettysburg, noting what Lincoln did on the corresponding day in 1863 and relating the events of Lincoln’s life and presidency to momentous events that occurred during subsequent Novembers. Events examined through the lens of Lincoln’s great address include: the 1918 battle death of the promising young poet, Wilfred Owen; Kristallnacht, the 1938 attack against German jews, the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy; and the 1965 battle in Vietnam’s Ia Drang Valley, the first major U.S. engagement of the Vietnam War.

Through the book, the author reminds readers of the essential unity of all elegies: lament and hope. Lincoln came to Gettysburg in 1863 as the Civil War raged. With his brief but memorable speech Gramm says that Lincoln, instead of dedicating a cemetery, dedicated a nation and thus transformed grief and despair into purpose and hope.

Essentially, Gramm’s book is a journey of hope. Tragic events, he insists, must be redeemed or they will remain nothing more than tragedies. <B>November</B> is an eloquent, melancholy and beautifully written tribute to Lincoln’s oration. But the book’s power springs from Gramm’s remarkable ability to weave Lincoln’s sentiments of hope and faith into the other stories he tells. <I>Robert Mann is author of</I> A Grand Delusion: America’s Descent into Vietnam (<I>Basic</I>).

<B>Lincoln's enduring message of hope</B> In his magnificent new work, <B>November: Lincoln's Elegy at Gettysburg</B>, author Kent Gramm explains his unusual interpretation of the most celebrated speech in American history, delivered on November 19, 1863. November is nature's elegy, he writes. Let the month itself…
Memoir

Broken bones, reinvented spirits

Review by bookpagedev

Navajo poet Nasdijj has produced another triumph in his latest memoir, Geronimo’s Bones: A Memoir of My Brother and Me. Although the writer’s earlier works centered on his adopted children, in this new book Nasdijj explores his own abusive past and that of his brother, Tso. There’s no polite way to put this: Nasdijj and his brother were repeatedly raped and beaten by their father over a period of several years after their mother died. Nasdijj frequently emerged from these confrontations with broken bones that, he indicates, are to blame for a painful bone disease that threatens his life now that he is in his 50s. This cycle of abuse took place within the context of poverty, hunger and instability. A migrant worker, Nasdijj’s father moves his family every few weeks. A chronic alcoholic, he rarely gets around to shopping for food or cooking for his boys. Other migrants are too scared to report the abuse to the authorities. And the arm of the law isn’t long enough, apparently, to catch up with a migrant child molester.

Geronimo’s Bones is loosely woven around the brothers’ daring escape from their father. At ages 13 and 14, they pick their father’s pocket of several thousand dollars, steal a Corvette from a chop shop and drive it to California. One of their first stops is a House of Pancakes where they pick up a 16-year-old girl who is also running away from home. Her driver’s license facilitates their journey since she can legally drive and can check them into motels along the way. Their journey is not told in a straight line, however. Nasdijj deliberately fragments his story, going back and forth in time, slipping years ahead without warning. By organizing his story this way, he mimics the way the human mind deals with harsh memories in pieces that string together in random patterns.

“What pisses me off about the assumption that my life, and the life of my brother, can be explained in linear ways, is, too, an assumption that my father was destroyed in degrees,” explains Nasdijj. He goes on to write, “our father was destroyed in a thousand ways, a trillion ways, ways far beyond our limited ability to understand even as it was happening in front of our eyes. Even as it was happening to him, it was happening to us.” Nasdijj interweaves his narrative with Native American mythology, especially the myths surrounding Indian leader Geronimo. The author reinvents himself and his brother as mythological “war twins,” sons of Changing Woman, sister to White Shell Woman. Each new chapter of his narrative begins with myth, then gears back into the story of his own horrible childhood. In Geronimo’s Bones, Nasdijj casts a light on the psychology of abusive parents and children who are so disempowered they don’t appeal for help. Some people may find themselves drawn to this book for the lessons it offers psychologists and social workers. Others will be drawn to Nasdijj’s haunting poetic style. Whether for its sociological values or for its literary merit, most readers are bound to find Geronimo’s Bones a groundbreaking and important new work. Lynn Hamilton writes from Tybee Island, Georgia.

Navajo poet Nasdijj has produced another triumph in his latest memoir, Geronimo's Bones: A Memoir of My Brother and Me. Although the writer's earlier works centered on his adopted children, in this new book Nasdijj explores his own abusive past and that of his brother,…
FictionHistorical Fiction

A slave’s quest for freedom

Review by bookpagedev

<B>A slave’s quest for freedom</B> Overwhelming acclaim greeted David Anthony Durham’s debut novel, <I>Gabriel’s Story</I>, which inspired comparisons to William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy. How does his sophomore effort measure up? <B>Walk Through Darkness</B>, Durham’s second novel, matches, even surpasses, his first on every level. A lover of history, Durham takes the prickly topic of American slavery and carefully dissects it through the eyes of two leading characters: William, a fugitive slave, and Morrison, his relentless, mysterious pursuer. Durham’s book uses the plight of William, who flees bondage in Maryland, to show the human toll of slavery as he follows the trail of his pregnant wife, Dover. In this uncertain time before the onset of the Civil War, William pushes himself to the limits of his endurance to get to freedom and to his wife, swimming the hazardous waters of the Chesapeake, braving the wilds, keeping one step ahead of his trackers and their dogs. Durham, an expert at describing his scenes in cinematic detail, is careful not to employ a broad brush in depicting either his black or white characters during this grueling journey through violent territory. The realism of the intricately evoked scenes and the humanity of his characters lift the novel above other historical fiction.

When William’s first try for freedom fails after he is betrayed by Oli, a former slave working as a decoy with the trackers, the fugitive is beaten, humiliated and led away in chains. But the harsh scenes of violence and cruelty are tempered with brief glimpses into the interior world of the slaves, who survive the barbarity of their existence by holding on to the few precious moments of joy they experience with family members and friends who have not been sold. It is that love that compels William on his perilous quest, with Morrison right on his heels.

Upon reaching the North and freedom, nothing is as he expected, neither freedom, the black life there nor his beloved Dover who has matured emotionally and spiritually. Complex, brilliantly written and deeply engaging, <B>Walk Through Darkness</B> shows a young novelist building on his formidable narrative gifts to produce a powerful work of historical fiction. <I>Robert Fleming is a writer in New York</I>.

<B>A slave's quest for freedom</B> Overwhelming acclaim greeted David Anthony Durham's debut novel, <I>Gabriel's Story</I>, which inspired comparisons to William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy. How does his sophomore effort measure up? <B>Walk Through Darkness</B>, Durham's second novel, matches, even surpasses, his first on every level.…

Children's & YA

Kate DiCamillo’s new classic

Review by bookpagedev

If you're looking for a book about love for Valentine's Day, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better choice than The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, which goes on sale, appropriately, on Feb. 14. This latest story by Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo revolves around an elegant china rabbit named Edward who belongs to a girl named Abilene and lives in an extremely elegant household. He has a wardrobe of handmade silk suits, custom leather shoes and an attitude to match. He is an utter snob, disdainful of most everything; his heart is as cold as the china of which he is made. You disappoint me, Abilene's grandmother tells Edward. She had him commissioned, but she doesn't like what he has become. So one night she tells a story about a princess who loved no one and cared nothing for love, even though there were many who loved her. Deep in his cold heart, Edward knows the story is for him.

And so Edward's journey begins, as he, Abilene and her family board a ship, the Queen Mary. On deck some mean boys begin playing catch with Edward, and he ends up going overboard, deep into the sea. There he's caught in a fisherman's net, and taken to the first of many new homes. To Edward's complete horror, the fisherman's wife calls him Susanna and dresses him like a girl. In his new home, however, his heart begins to stir. Later Edward is thrown into a dump and adopted by a hobo named Bull, who calls Edward Malone. As the rabbit is tossed from one owner to the next, he comes to learn what it was like to miss someone. DiCamillo's newest offering is full of lovely, stately language, a riveting plot and a message that is heartwarming without being preachy. Fans of Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux will not be disappointed.

Rounding out this magnificent book are gorgeous illustrations by Bagram Ibatoulline. At the beginning of each chapter are small duotone illustrations, plus 10 full-color, lavish plates. Drink them in; they are particularly pleasing in this day and age when simple, childlike art seems all too often the rage.

DiCamillo's plot will keep you riveted, reminding you of other wonderful fairy tales, especially those of Hans Christian Andersen. This tale has destined to be a classic written all over it, and it lives up to its great promise.

If you're looking for a book about love for Valentine's Day, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better choice than The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, which goes on sale, appropriately, on Feb. 14. This latest story by Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo revolves around an…

Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Deadly land squabble on the Vineyard

Review by bookpagedev

Nothing so animates the contentious natives of Martha’s Vineyard as the question of proper land use. To propose the slightest alteration of the landscape is to launch an endless series of loud public meetings and a barrage of vitriolic letters to the editor. Imagine the hubbub and intrigue, then, when a local dowager spurns her estranged son and strange granddaughter by selling her 200 unspoiled acres to that lowest of life forms, an off-island developer. Soon after this happens, the lawyer who negotiated the deal turns up dead inside this same disputed acreage.

Thus begins Cynthia Riggs’ second mystery set on Martha’s Vineyard. Determined to make sense of all the commercial and personal crosscurrents set in motion by the sale is 92-year-old Victoria Trumbull, the poet, newspaper columnist and tireless snoop Riggs introduced last year in Deadly Nightshade.

If the lawyer’s death is murder, as Trumbull believes it to be, then there’s no shortage of suspects. Besides the disinherited family members who may be carrying grudges, there are at least four distinct groups scrambling to wrest the newly acquired land from the developer a gaggle of Utopians looking to build their own upscale paradise on the spot, some civic types who seek to turn the place into a public park and campground, a cabal of rich doctors intent on creating an exclusive golf course and the beleaguered and underfunded conservationists who want to preserve the land the way it is.

This last group involves Trumbull in the action (as if she needed an excuse) by asking her to search the warred-over turf for any endangered species of plants that might bring development to a quick halt. Helping Trumbull carry out her mission as well as test her suspicions are the long-suffering local police chief (also a woman) and an inquisitive 11-year-old sidekick.

Riggs, who bases the character of Victoria on her own dauntless mother, knows the Island its flora, fauna, families, legends, customs and rumors so well that every pace she puts her senior sleuth through becomes another delightful discovery.

Nothing so animates the contentious natives of Martha's Vineyard as the question of proper land use. To propose the slightest alteration of the landscape is to launch an endless series of loud public meetings and a barrage of vitriolic letters to the editor. Imagine the…
History

The origins of a deadly conflict

Review by bookpagedev

The early years of the 20th century in Europe were characterized by an accelerating arms race. According to historian David Fromkin, “Europe’s main business had become the business of preparing to fight a war.” In Germany alone, about 90 percent of the Reich’s budget was spent on the army and navy. Total arms spending by the six Great Powers of Europe increased by 50 percent between 1908 and 1913. Yet the Great Powers had lived in peace since 1871. Why should the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand have led to the world’s most devastating war up to that time? Fromkin, best known for his highly regarded study A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Middle East, tackles the origins of this deadly conflict in his magnificent, consistently compelling Europe’s Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914? Using the latest scholarship, and writing with clarity and insight, Fromkin presents evidence that demonstrates that WWI was really two wars. The first was the local war between Austria and Serbia, which was connected with the killing of the Archduke and his wife, Sophie. The second, and much larger, Great War “was caused by the struggle for supremacy among the great European powers . . . Germany deliberately started a European war to keep from being overtaken by Russia,” Fromkin asserts.

The author points out that in the years before the war, many Germans thought their nation was becoming weak. This idea was entirely false: the country was actually growing stronger, in part because of its concern about encirclement by other powers. This concern spurred military funding and development to even greater heights. Germany’s growing military might so concerned its neighbors that France, Russia and England began making contingency plans for self-defense if Germany attacked them.

The author masterfully guides us through the complexities of appropriate prewar European diplomatic and military history. His portraits of the various decision makers and detailed discussions of their policies command our attention.

One of the most fascinating political relationships Fromkin discusses is between Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Archduke Franz Ferdinand. “Time and again, through the frequent war crises that were so conspicuous a feature of their time, both men chose peace, and were distrusted by the military in their respective countries for having done so.” Fromkin believes the questions about the origins of the Great War are the most important in modern history. Since the 1960s, new information, primarily from German, Austrian and Serbian sources, has become available. The author asserts that his book “is an attempt to look at the old questions in the light of the new knowledge, to summarize the data, and then to draw some conclusions from it.” I can enthusiastically recommend the result. Roger Bishop is a bookseller in Nashville and a frequent contributor to BookPage.

The early years of the 20th century in Europe were characterized by an accelerating arms race. According to historian David Fromkin, "Europe's main business had become the business of preparing to fight a war." In Germany alone, about 90 percent of the Reich's budget was…
ParentingFamily & Relationships

What love’s got to do with it

Review by bookpagedev

<B>What love’s got to do with it</B> You might fight like cats and dogs, but where would you be without dear old mom? Without her attention and affection? And endless advice? Sure, her helpful hints are often unasked-for (and sometimes shrilly delivered), but they’re sent with unconditional love the kind only mothers can provide. So take a tip from BookPage and remember mom this month with one of the terrific titles listed below.

Motivational speaker Cherie Carter-Scott, Ph.

D., commemorates the maternal role in <B>The Gift of Motherhood: 10 Truths for Every Mother</B>. Author of the best-selling advice book, <I>f Life is a Game, These are the Rules</I>, Scott, who has worked with Fortune 500 companies like American Express and IBM, offers 10 insights about motherhood that she has gleaned from personal experience and from years of coaching women all over the world. The universals she presents in the book Remembering to care for yourself is essential and Love shows up in many different forms are examined in-depth and illustrated by inspiring anecdotes from real-life moms. <B>The Gift of Motherhood</B> also functions as a how-to guide to parenting, proposing practical strategies for dealing with mother-daughter conflicts, for envisioning the type of mother you want to become and achieving that vision for being both friend and authority figure to your child. Each of Scott’s truths serves to demystify the role of mother, providing support for the struggling parent. Transcending race, religion and nationality, her words of wisdom and humor will energize future and seasoned mothers alike. With <!–BPLINK=–>1930170025<B>Busy Woman’s Cookbook</B><!–ENDBPLINK–>, authors Sharon and Gene McFall share more than 500 recipes that are sure to ease a mother’s greatest domestic burden. For those without the time or inclination to experiment in the kitchen, this back-to-the-basics book offers three- and four-element recipes, composed of easily accessible ingredients, that take the complexity out of cooking. From Old Time Meat Loaf to Skinny Minny Pork Chops, from Cinnamon Coffee Cake to Sopaipillas, creative ideas for appetizers, entrees, salads and desserts are simply and briefly presented. Downhome or exotic, old-fashioned or new-fangled, there’s a dish for every food preference. Amusing anecdotes and fascinating facts (200 to be exact) about famous women enliven the text. A sturdy cover and spiral binding make the book easy to handle in the kitchen. <B>Busy Woman</B> lets the overwhelmed mother put meal planning where it belongs on the back burner.

For moms who are coming-of-age, consider <!–BPLINK=–>0696213907<B>Fifty Celebrate Fifty: Fifty Extraordinary Women Talk About Facing, Turning and Being Fifty</B><!–ENDBPLINK–>, a book of sparkling photos and fabulous interviews from the editors of <I>More</I> magazine. The volume features candid talks with women who are better than ever at mid-life, including Diane Sawyer, Amy Tan, Susan Sarandon and Phylicia Rashad. The book includes a broad range of voices women from various cultures and career arenas who testify with pride about hitting their stride at 50. AIDS activist Beverly Mosley talks about living with HIV. Newscaster Judy Woodruff discusses coping with her son’s brain injury. These honest accounts of juggling family and career, of overcoming obstacles and achieving inner peace will inspire females of any age. Experience is sexy, says Susan Sarandon. And today, women can be sexy and 50. Indeed, the future has never looked brighter for these confident, accomplished women, each of whom combines the poise of youth with the wisdom that only age can bring. A tribute to diversity, beauty and individuality, <B>Fifty Celebrate Fifty</B> is a great way to remind mom that the best really is yet to come. <I> The job of mother most often plays itself out not on the lofty levels of Hallmark splendor but rather in the trenches of day-to-day life. </I> Cherie Carter-Scott <I>The Gift of Motherhood</I>

<B>What love's got to do with it</B> You might fight like cats and dogs, but where would you be without dear old mom? Without her attention and affection? And endless advice? Sure, her helpful hints are often unasked-for (and sometimes shrilly delivered), but they're sent…

Biography

Marvin Gaye: one more heartache

Review by bookpagedev

The miracle of Marvin Gaye wasn’t his singing, wonderful though it was. What’s most amazing is that he managed to sing at all in a world that offered him more torture than comfort.

This is the picture painted in Mercy, Mercy Me: The Art, Love ∧ Demons of Marvin Gaye by Michael Eric Dyson, a perceptive observer of issues related to the arts and to the symbiotic interactions between black and white Americans. Race played its role in the growth of young Marvin Gay, but this was only one of the roadblocks thrown into his path. His decision to add a final “e” to the spelling of his last name, for example, hints at the inner turmoil he suppressed throughout his life; he didn’t want his name to cast doubt on his heterosexual virility.

The pace of Dyson’s writing accelerates as it moves forward. Through interviews and his own reflections he makes clear just how innovative Gaye was, and in particular how brilliantly he worked as a collaborator with other creative types. Attention is given to “What’s Goin’ On” and “Let’s Get It On,” songs that trace the twin trajectories of his artistry, which seems in retrospect to be somehow both enduring and tragically fragile.

At first, it is puzzling how briefly the author recounts Gaye’s childhood; it flies by in an instant on the opening pages. But then, in the next-to-last chapter, Dyson takes us back to that time, and for the reader the experience is like remembering a nightmare. In these passages, Reverend Marvin Gay, the singer’s father, rises like a wraith from the awful past, a vengeful Lear who commits murder to atone for all their own sins in the son’s case, drug abuse, violence toward women, and most of all for not being strong enough to survive his search for love.

At the end Dyson ties this story to what he calls a “bigger pathology” in African-American culture. His is a sobering message: the inflictions borne by Marvin Gaye, incredible as they seem, are a part of life to too many unsung brothers even now.

Robert L. Doerschuk is a former editor of Musician magazine.

The miracle of Marvin Gaye wasn't his singing, wonderful though it was. What's most amazing is that he managed to sing at all in a world that offered him more torture than comfort.

This is the picture painted in Mercy, Mercy Me: The…

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