David Day. The Ring Legends of Tolkien. Thunder Bay P, 2020.

The Ring Legends of Tolkien, for the most part, can be a helpful tool for anyone interested in Tolkien’s literary sources. Tolkien, after all, was a medieval scholar and was familiar with many of the Old and Middle English and corresponding Germanic and Nordic literature from that time period. This book summarizes those works for the reader to give us an idea of how Tolkien may have adapted such tales, especially those involving rings.

Day basically gives what one might call Cliff’s Notes or Masterplots versions of such stories related to rings. Most of the stories are fascinating in themselves. Chapters include ones on Norse and Icelandic sagas, the King Arthur legend, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon tales, The Nibelungenlied, Classical mythology, and Wagner’s Ring Cycle. He notes and emphasizes tales and parts of the tales involving rings. These all illustrate possible connections with parts of Tolkien’s legendarium.

A few chapters seem out of place. We learn of some Indian and Chinese tales, but is there any evidence that Tolkien knew or used them? One Chinese tale about a jade ring worn by emperors shows us how the “Middle Kingdom” viewed the Mandate of Heaven, but no connection is made with Middle Earth. There is an interesting apocryphal story about King Solomon, but the author dismisses the Bible or Christian teaching in spite of the fact that Tolkien was a devout Catholic. Day suggests that ancient Gnostics and alchemists were closer to the truth than orthodox Christians, but any connection with Tolkien’s work is vague at best.

The book omits any mention of The Kalevala, the Finnish national folk epic. That could be simply because there are no tales of enchanted rings, though the story of the Sampo—a magic wealth-creating device—seems to have parallels with the manufacturing and temptations of the rings of Middle Earth. We know that Tolkien loved The Kalevala, and it influenced his storytelling.

If The Ring Legends of Tolkien have a thesis, it is that Tolkien did something different with the rings than was usually done. The stories of magic rings usually involve some kind of quest for power. The Lord of the Rings does have a kind of quest as well, but it is a quest to get rid of the ring and destroy the power. In other words, Tolkien’s approach has an original twist to traditional ring tales.

One interesting recurring image from the various Nordic and Germanic tales is Odin coming to earth disguised as a wanderer in a robe, slouch hat, beard, and eyepatch. Day connects this image with that of Gandalf who comes from another realm and has magical powers and a similar appearance. Ryken says the image suggests a Biblical prophet.¹ Why not both? Ryken’s reading of Tolkien may balance some of Day’s hostility towards orthodoxy.

Day briefly discusses some similarities between World War II and the War of the Rings. Still, he quotes Tolkien saying that any comparison was more coincidental than intentional. After all, though Day does not bring it up, Tolkien’s own war was World War I.

The Ring Legends of Tolkien can provide readers with some background to Tolkien’s literary inspirations, especially as they read about tales of other legendary rings and how some of them relate to Tolkien’s works.

Note
¹ To make this point from current media, this reviewer could not help but notice how the depiction of the prophet Samuel in the recent Amazon House of David series resembled Gandalf from he Peter Jackson LOTR movies.

M. C. Beaton and R. W. Green. Death of a Smuggler. Grand Central, 2025. A Hamish Macbeth Mystery.

If that last book we reviewed was a complicated mystery—almost nothing wasn’t mysterious in
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle—Death of a Smuggler is a much simpler mystery. M. C. Beaton still gets top billing, the same way Tom Clancy still gets top billing in the Jack Ryan stories, but this is clearly Mr. Green’s.

A very helpful preface tells us about an anomaly in British law. Believe it or not, people smuggle Scotch whiskey into Scotland! Taxes are high on the product, so people will obtain whiskey that has been exported or labeled for export and smuggle it back into the country to avoid the taxes. It appears that our smugglers are not just smuggling whiskey, though. They are involved in smuggling people as well: human trafficking or slave labor.

A woman named Kathleen Tait is found dead in a cottage near the shore. A recently-fired shotgun is found there, too, except that the woman has no gunshot wounds. It looks like she has been strangled. But for a long time in the story, this is just a side issue.

A Chief Inspector from Edinburgh has arrived in the area, closely overseeing Daviot and Blair in a case which Hamish Macbeth is told very little about but which he says he is to keep his eye out for a particular criminal named Gallagher who might be desperate. He seems to be somehow related to Ms. Tait.

As he investigates the murder, Hamish comes across some other people looking for Gallagher, too. It seems our suspect has been very abusive to his wife, and now his wife and her parents are looking for him as well. They are very blunt with Hamish. If they find Gallagher, they will kill him.

We also learn that two beautiful Latvian women have likely escaped the clutches of Gallagher as well. They were promised a modeling gig in New York. Instead, they find themselves with their passports stolen on a desolate Scottish shore. They are held hostage by Miss Tait until they manage to escape around the same time she is murdered.

A new tavern has opened up near Lochdubh. It turns out that its proprietor has known Gallagher in the past. Are they still working together? He seems to be selling his quality Scotch at the price of blends.

Most of the usual Lochdubh characters show up. Priscilla is working remotely from the family’s home. Elspeth has been assigned by her paper to report on the murder since even the brass in the capital seem interested. Angus the seer and the Currie sisters have contributions to make. Archie the fisherman helps out. So does the local coastguard. Claire, the medic and Hamish’s current girlfriend, is still interested in Hamish.

In fact, for a change, Hamish does not seem to make any faux pas with females this time. One reason is that Constable Davey (the “young recruit” mentioned in a previous review) has been once again assigned to Lochdubh, and he is smitten with the flirtatious Priscilla. The fact that another policeman might be interested in her drives her father crazy. This accounts for some of the fun in reading the tale.

There is a mystery about why Davey has been reassigned. Even his godfather and Hamish’s friend Jimmy Anderson won’t say why, but it sounds like Davey has been given a last chance to redeem himself over something serious.

Hamish is knocking around the area trying to solve a crime while looking for a fugitive but not being told a whole lot about who this Gallagher is or why he might be especially dangerous. It is clear that Blair knows him from his own corrupt past. Jimmy Anderson helps out. Jimmy has now been on the wagon for nearly a year now, so he has changed. Dare I say that even the nasty Blair may have changed a little.

It becomes clear that Gallagher is quite stealthy. He is also one of seven suspects in the murder case. Hamish has to come up with something to flush Gallagher out. This, then, becomes the plot.

It is not much of a spoiler to say that author Green does something which is typical of many British mysteries (think Hercule Poirot or Death in Paradise). While it is not especially deliberate on his part, at one point he has all the murder suspects in one place, so Hamish can confront them with the various crimes they have or could have committed.

It is clear that R. W. Green is on his own in this one. He still has the light touch with a bit of humor, but it is also clear that Death of a Smuggler is different. Whether that makes it better or worse than the novels of Mrs. Beaton will depend on the reader.

Stuart Turton. The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Sourcebooks, 2018.

I doubt if anyone has read a book quite like The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Imagine the game of Clue played like the film Groundhog Day with some Freaky Friday thrown in. That is The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle in a nutshell.

Our narrator, like the Bill Murray character in Groundhog Day, is doomed to relive a day in his life eight times. However, in each case he lives it in the body—and to some degree, the mind—of one of the other characters in the story. The characters have all been invited to a party at the rundown estate of Lord and Lady Hardcastle. The Hardcastles have a son, Michael, and a daughter, Evelyn. A third son, Thomas was murdered at the age of nine on the property. Lady Hardcastle is hosting the party on the nineteenth anniversary of his death. Most guests and, I suspect, most readers consider this macabre if not simply weird.

From all accounts, she never got over it. Shortly after Thomas’s death, she sent Evelyn away to a boarding school in France and has hardly seen her since. Michael has kept in touch with her and seems to stick up for her, but he seldom sees her, either.

Our narrator in turns reappears as a doctor, a servant, a playboy, a gourmand, a lawyer, a constable, and a young aristocrat. There are also a couple of otherworldly folks. At least one man dresses as a plague doctor; in other words, he wears a mask with a beaklike nose that one sees in medieval portrayals of doctors attending to plague victims. He appears from time to time to tell the narrator what he must do. He acts as a kind of referee or observer from outside.

There is also the footman. As in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” the footman here is not so much a servant as an antagonist representing death. Our narrator’s challenge (we learn a name for him eventually) is to solve or, if possible, prevent the murder of Evelyn which is supposed to happen in the evening of the get-together—and which does happen on some of the days. At the same time, he and some of the others must escape the footman.

There a numerous other men and women at the manor. They interact with each other as well as with the various men our narrator inhabits. There is at least one other doctor and two other attorneys. There is Stanwin, a blackmailer who seems to have something on everyone there.

Because of what happens to our narrator, there are mysteries nesting within each other. Yes, there is the apparent murder of Miss Evelyn (if it cannot be stopped). But there are also questions about what exactly happened to young Thomas nineteen years before—and what happened to the stable boy two weeks before that. The stable boy was just a year or two older than Thomas.

There are also mysteries about what people are up to now. Who are the plague doctor and the footman? Why do some people like some guests and hate others? It looks like after early morning some of the folks including Lady Hardcastle have disappeared. In such a party setting, some things get complicated because of booze. One of the doctors is a British version of Dr. Feelgood and brings a stash of drugs to the party. As in Clue, there are also a number of weapons or potential weapons that may play a part in the story.

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is quite clever. Each of the eight men our narrator inhabits has a very different personality and physique. The narrator has his own as well. The story is not told in a completely linear manner. While most of the days play out numerically one through eight, we do get some chapters that take us back to an earlier day.

And there are also episodes that would be typical of any party, especially a party in which many of the guests were staying over. There are various maids and servants. People flirt. People argue. People gossip. And what about the people who seem to be missing or who were invited and have not come?

Not only is the novel clever. It is complicated.

There were a few times that I wished it had a list of characters the way plays and some Russian novels do. Still, I think I got everyone straight. Because it turns out that the mystery of Evelyn is not the only one, I doubt if anyone could solve all the mysteries. Every chapter, every repeated day contains revelations. This not so much a mystery to solve (like Clue) but a party game to just get caught up in and carried along.

Michael Crichton and James Patterson. Eruption. Little Brown, 2024.

I was looking through new books at a library when this title jumped out at me. Michael Crichton and James Patterson? This had to be something…

Patterson often co-authors, but this was different. After all, Michael Crichton died over a decade ago. We have reviewed a number of his scientific thrillers on these pages. It turns out that when he died, Crichton had extensive notes for a thriller based on a volcanic eruption in Hawaii. His widow was waiting for someone who could turn them into another bestseller. It comes as no surprise that eventually she and Patterson reached an agreement.

It is clear from the plot and details that the story of Eruption is Crichton’s. While stories like Congo, Jurassic Park, or Next begin with what we know of biology to tell a wild tale, Eruption is about the geology—more specifically, volcanology. I have had the opportunity to visit the Big Island of Hawaii and visit Volcanoes National Park, but the story is told well enough that a reader who has never left his home town can visualize and understand what it going on.

Patterson’s contribution is the pacing and storytelling. Typical of his style, some chapters are a single page. The average chapter length is less than four pages. There are multiple characters and points of view. The action is pretty relentless. Even without describing any details, a reader can probably guess how the novel will unfold.

People in California sometimes speculate about the Big One. In that state, they are referring to an earthquake. On the Island of Hawaii, the Big One is a potential huge volcanic eruption. In recent years we have occasionally read about Kilauea, a relatively small active volcano on the island that erupts from time to time. The second largest peak on the island, however, is Mauna Loa, and that is still active. Indeed, it is considered the largest active volcano in the world. Its last eruption was in 2022. Fortunately, it did not last too long or do too much damage, but what if the next one was not so little?

That is what volcanologist John MacGregor and army General Rivers are trying to confront. Seismic activity tells us this is going to be a big one. Is there anything people can do to divert some of the lava flow to protect populated areas? It becomes a race against time.

Experts are brought in, including some Italian scientists who had succeeded in diverting the flow of Etna the last time it erupted. It also includes some publicity-seeking volcano chasers led by J.P. Brett, one of the richest men in the world—an adventure seeker perhaps reminiscent of Branson or Bezos. Local politicians have to be involved, as do others who are connected to the HVO, Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. A construction company known mostly for building demolitions is called in as well.

Naturally, with such a potential emergency, the press is involved. Perhaps the most pointed line in the whole book is spoken by one of the reporters: “Hey, we’re from the New York Times. We know everything” (252). If anyone has read some of Crichton’s nonfiction like “Aliens Cause Global Warming,” that line sounds like pure Crichton.

A big secret creates more tension. It turns out that in the 1940s and 1950s one of the volcano tubes (a lava cave created after an eruption) was used to store canisters of radioactive biological waste from a NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) weapons program that was discontinued. There was a leak once that killed all living things it came in contact with. The biological aspect means that it was capable of reproducing. Not only is there a possible deadly eruption, but a situation not unlike The Andromeda Strain that could put an end to all life on earth if the stuff in those canisters gets out.

The tension builds. People die. There are heroes. There are fools. There is a enthralling page turner, an effective collaboration of two masters of popular fiction.

Lee Child. Echo Burning. Jove, 2001.

Hope for the best, plan for the worst. That was his guiding principle. (86, italics in original)

Army and law enforcement veteran Jack Reacher is one tough guy. In Echo Burning we get to see his strengths: his size, his skill with weapons and fists, his knowledge of crimes, and perhaps the chip on his shoulder. However, Echo Burning also demonstrates some weakness. Reacher is experienced and skilled, but he is no superhero. He is mortal like the rest of us.

Lee Child writes cleverly. There are so many plot twists, it becomes almost impossible to review the story. Of course, plot twists are entertaining and keep us reading. Echo Burning is a wild tale in both senses. The story is one surprise after another, and it takes place in the Wild West and near wilderness of West Texas.

The title comes from the heat. The town Echo, Texas, in the summertime is hot and dry. The book will make readers thirsty. Time and again we read of temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, overloaded air conditioners, and wet clothes that dry in no time.

We also read about a complicated situation drifter Jack Reacher (Jack Creature?) has gotten into. Having to leave a situation in a hurry, he begins to hitchhike. He is picked up by a woman in a big car with a crazy story. Carmen is looking for help. Her husband has been in prison for a year and a half for tax evasion and is getting out soon. She claims he used to beat her frequently, and she fears it will be worse when he gets back home.

Home is a sprawling family ranch overseen by her mother-in-law and single brother-in-law. Reacher agrees to do what he can to help. He will work as a hired hand there, but he confesses to her that he knows little about horses. She figures that they are always looking for help, and if he can keep an eye on things even for a week, she might be able to get by. (There is more, but I want to avoid too many spoilers.)

Meanwhile, we read from time to time brief episodes concerning a trio of hired assassins. We would call the hitmen, except the leader is a woman. Hitpersons? Hitpeople? They are very smart and very careful. We read of how they kill a lawyer from Echo who was a long-time friend of Carmen’s husband. They cover their tracks carefully. Indeed, readers might think that if they follow similar procedures, they could get away with murder. After all, these teammates are pros and have been getting away with murder for some time.

It takes a long time in the novel before we see a more direct connection between the hitpeople and Carmen’s situation. Although Reacher finds himself in a couple of bar fights and at least one shootout, much of his focus is on the mystery he sees. Who is telling the truth? Is everyone lying?

He picks up on details that others miss. At one point, for example, he is given a FedEx packet of documents. He weighs the documents and notices that the papers he was given weigh about a pound less than the weight on the shipping label. What else was in the mailer?

There are many other such details that show Reacher’s smarts. He realizes that some of the things going on around Echo such as the lawyer’s disappearance were committed by professionals. That gets him thinking in a different direction: What would pros do? Who is hiring them? This is more than the mere family drama that Carmen thinks it is.

The motif of anti-Mexican prejudice recurs through the story. The husband’s family and some of their friends look down on Carmen because she is Mexican. Now, she says her family settled in California when it was still part of Mexico, so she is as American as anyone, but is she telling the truth? Not that her husband’s family and other residents of Echo would believe it.

I have spent a little bit of time time in West Texas and adjacent New Mexico. Lee Child does get a sense of the geography of the region. He also tells a real tough-guy tale.

Over the years I have had few students read Jack Reacher novels—I suspect in part because of the popularity of the Amazon television series. When I had the opportunity to read this, I took it to see what they were about. I can see why they are popular. I suspect they will endure for some time.

Mary Norton Kratt. A Bird in the House. Wing Haven Foundation, 1991.

This is a brief but entertaining story of a small nature preserve in Charlotte, North Carolina. Shortly after they married in 1927, Elizabeth and Eddie Clarkson moved to North Carolina. Elizabeth had a vision for a garden with flowers, trees, and vegetables on the four acre plot. This tells how her plans developed into a refuge for all kinds of birds and other animals.

Probably the most striking parts of A Bird in the House describe the various animals, especially birds, that lived not only in the gardens but shared the Clarkson’s house. Rescued bluebird fledglings ended up as house pets for years. A Carolina wren built her nest on a bookcase. She would enter the room through a window that was left slightly ajar. There were wood ducks, hummingbirds, squirrels that were all protected. Many, even wild birds and animals, would feed from the Clarkson’s hands.

Though the couple have both passed away, their vision lives on as a park and foundation that still provides a safe spot for creatures today. The book was clearly made for visitors to the Wing Haven site in Charlotte, but others can appreciate the founders’ accomplishments. Their observations over the years have contributed to our understanding of bird behavior. They have been written up in such places as Atlantic and National Geographic magazines. Visitors included such folks as ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson and evangelist Billy Graham. Their “garden” has made an impression on many people.

Garrison Keillor. Lake Wobegon Days. Viking, 1985.

I miss The Prairie Home Companion. It was a sweet yet funny throwback radio show. There was nothing quite like it. For a little nostalgia fix, I picked up Lake Wobegon Days recently. I enjoyed it. What more can I say?

Some of Keillors’ books like Leaving Home are basically collections of his best routines from the radio show. Lake Wobegon Days is not like that. In fact, Lake Wobegon Days purports to be a history of the Minnesota town, beginning with French trappers and the Unitarian missionaries who tried to convert the local Ojibway through interpretive dance. After observing the native Americans’ traditions, they thought dance was important to them and might be a more effective way of bringing their message to them.

The book more or less ends with the description of a revival meeting at the Lutheran Church. Yes, it is satire, but it is gentle, respectful, and understanding. The Unitarian ladies and the revival preacher may be a little bit unusual but they are no Elmer Gantrys. These things could have happened that way.

The lake itself may have gotten its name from its Indian name as understood by English speakers. I grew up near Concord, Massachusetts. Nearby was the Assabet River. It sounds like an native name like Connecticut or Massachusetts, but it is actually a corruption of Elizabeth (“Elsabet”) and was named for the queen. Anyway, that is the kind of explanations and stories we get in this book. One could almost call this The Underground History of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota.

Any fans of the radio show will recognize the family names: Inqvist, Krebsbach, Thorvaldsen, Bunsen, and so on. We learn about their ancestors and their houses. We learn of the origins (if that is the right term) of the Norwegian bachelor farmers.

The other story line, such as it is, has to do with the personal history of our narrator “Gary Keillor.” What happens when he sneaks into the Sidetrack Tap Café to see what it was like? Remember, his parents are Sanctified Brethren and avoid such places. Or the time in high school when he dates an older woman who is a college student.

If there is a pattern to this book, it is loosely based on Walden. Readers of Walden note how Thoreau observes life both in the town of Concord and in the woods. (The subtitle is Life in the Woods.) But as he makes his observations of nature and society, he loosely follows the seasons, beginning and ending with spring.

Keillor’s trajectory is similar. While, yes, he begins with the history of his hometown, the stories start with summer and end with spring also. Spring is new life. So the religious revival brings new life to a few individuals in town. Thoreau may say that spring shows we can dispense with churches—let them go by the board, he says. But ordinary folks in Middle America find new life in the Christ of Easter. Jesus rose from the dead, and so we can be delivered into new life as well.

There is also a sense of personal growth. When our narrator relates his own experiences of growing up in Lake Wobegon—please understand that, unlike Walden, this is fiction—he begins with early childhood memories and by the end, he is going off to college.

Close readers may note one interesting discrepancy. Just as Arthur Conan Doyle is a little unclear of Watson’s first name—is it John or James?—so in this book, the fictional character Keillor admires is Tony Flambeau, a kind of artsy Hardy boy whose sophisticated parents travel the world as they solve mysteries. In Leaving Home, he is Tom Flambeau (or are Tom and Tony different?). Nevertheless, it shows how such stories appeal to young readers. Such an exciting life the Flambeaus and the Hardys live! But we can live it vicariously through those books.

Similarly, readers can re-live something of the Prairie Home Companion radio show by reading this book. Have fun.

J. D. Vance. Hillbilly Elegy. Harper, 2018.

Hillbilly Elegy brought its author to prominence. So much so, that he is now Vice-President of the United States. The book is a memoir, not specifically a book on politics. The twelve pages of endorsement cover the political spectrum from the New York Times and Mother Jones to the National Review and Peter Thiel.

A good friend handed me the book and told me I had to read it. What struck me is that my friend is not a reader. It takes her a long time to read anything. But this book she could not put down. I suspect also that she may have identified with it. Without going into too much detail, she grew up in a trailer park raised by alcoholic parents. Like Vance, she overcame much of what was in her background.

I confess that I also could relate to his story to some degree. No, I had a very stable family growing up. My parents grew up in the Depression, so there was a kind of awareness of how things could be if people did not work hard and respect American values. Until I was eleven, I lived in a working class neighborhood. I recall in 1960 when the steelworkers went on strike, many of my friends’ fathers were out of work. It was working class, yes, but with hope. Most of the families there and then were upwardly mobile.

Then my family moved to a different state and into a middle to upper middle class community. Things were different there, but I was a kid and fit in and made friends. Vance ended up at Yale; I went to Harvard. Vance explains his experience at Yale Law School in almost dreamlike terms. There was so much that seemed unreal to him. He began to realize that a lot of people had ideas about the working classes, but really had no idea of what it was like.

I have written a little bit about my experiences at Harvard elsewhere, but I observed something similar. The campus radicals who seemed to have an inordinate influence on campus culture had ideas about a Communistic “worker student alliance,” but they were all from privileged backgrounds. Their dialectical theories had little relation to real life in the United States.

While Vance ultimately is making a similar point, that is not his main purpose. He wrote a memoir. It is that simple. He confesses at the beginning that he is only thirty-one years old and has not done much with his life yet—in other words, this is a different kind of memoir.

Think of the title, What is an elegy? The dictionary tells us it is a poem or song lamenting the dead. OK, Hillbilly Elegy is prose, not poetry, but Vance writes extremely well. His voice carries us along in a vibrant if harrowing narrative. It is a kind of lament or mourning, though.

His story focuses on his hillbilly grandparents, whom he calls Mamaw and Papaw, both of whom have died and who had a greater hand in raising him than his own parents. But it also is mourning the loss of a way of life. His family’s roots are in eastern Kentucky, but the hardscrabble lifestyle typified by the hillbillies with their distinct beliefs and even code of honor is disappearing. What seems to be replacing it is tragic for many.

One of his collateral Vance ancestors was married to a Hatfield and murdered one Asa McCoy shortly before the end of the Civil War. That incident started the most famous American family feud. (If you have never heard of the Hatfield-McCoy feud, you have lived a sheltered life. Look it up.) He suspects that his own Mamaw in her younger days may have killed someone. The hills were a law unto themselves. As a kid, though, Vance understood hillbilly justice as the best and fairest kind.

There is an undercurrent of violence throughout this memoir. Yes, occasionally someone may have been murdered, but the common violence was what we call domestic violence. His mother’s parents, Mamaw and Papaw, eventually separated because they physically fought each other. But they still lived near one another and took care of each other. Both looked out for J.D. and his older sister. What grounding, wisdom, and direction he received in his young life mostly came from them.

My friend who lent me her copy of the book warned me that there is a lot of strong language. That is the way many people talked. Vance does not mince words. At times some of the sayings are colorful, but at other times they are very intense. There is a great sense of anger at real or perceived injustice.

Vance himself was born and raised in Ohio. His grandparents had moved there from Kentucky as married teens in 1947. Vance notes that the Great Migration from the rural South to the industrial North in the first half of the twentieth century included both whites and blacks. I lived in Detroit for a while in the late sixties. Many of the working class there were white people from the South who were collectively called hillbillies there.

Vance notes that in the 1960 census, ten percent of the population of Ohio were born in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Tennessee. That, of course, does not include the children and grandchildren of such migrants like Vance and his family.

Sadly, by the time Vance was born in 1984, things were changing. Alcohol fueled a lot the violence that Vance witnessed in his family and his community. But by the 1980s drugs had taken over the younger generation. The reason his grandparents more or less raised him was that his mother, their daughter, was a drug addict. She had graduated as salutatorian of her high school class, but got married shortly after graduating and also became addicted around the same time. As Vance tells it, she went through multiple husbands and boyfriends. Her life can be summed up as unfulfilled potential.

Vance’s father separated not long after he was born and for many years knew little about him other than his name. The family name Vance was Papaw’s name, and J.D. would legally adopt it as his own. Everyone called him J.D. because even names that the J and D stood for changed. His father had also struggled with drugs and alcohol, but eventually encountered Jesus and cleaned up. Vance lived with him for a while as a teen. He appreciated but could not embrace the strict Pentecostalism of his father and his new family.

Although Vance grew up with and mostly lived with the one older sister, he figures that when he counts half-siblings and step-siblings, there are probably around a dozen people he could call brother or sister.

For many kids [of working class families], the first impulse is to escape, but people who lurch toward the exit rarely choose the right door. This is how my aunt found herself married at sixteen to an abusive husband. It’s how my mom, the salutatorian of her high school class, had both a baby and a divorce, but not a single college credit under her belt before her teenage years were over…Chaos begets chaos. Instability begets instability. Welcome to the family life of the American hillbilly. (229)

Sadly, Vance notes that the class of people who are most pessimistic about the future are members of the white working class.

Well over half of blacks, Latinos, and college-educated whites expect that their children will fare better economically than they have. Among working-class whites, only 44 percent share that expectation. Even more surprising, 42 percent of working-class white—by far the highest number in the [Pew Economic Mobility] survey—report that their lives are less economically successful than those of their parents’. (194-195)

How did Vance overcome this? Partly because of the influence, however erratic, of his grandparents. Yes, they could be rough and crude, but he knew they loved him. What education in practical living he received in his youth was from them. For example, when he was nine the school presented a lesson in what today might be called gay grooming. He wondered if he were gay. After all, his friends were all boys, and he really had little use for girls other than his sister. Mamaw straightened him out on that very simply and directly. You have to read it in her words to appreciate it. A current meme making the rounds these days says something similar—the only thing an eight year old boy needs to know about sex is that girls have cooties.

His grandfather encouraged him to go into the military, which he did. Although he could have gone to college after graduating well in his high school class, he decided to join the Marines and ended up in Iraq. He tells how that experience matured him and helped him become a man, and a stable one at that. It also provided G.I. Bill support for going to college afterwards.

I can attest to that from my own experience in the military. Now, I did not join till after college, but that was when I really matured, no longer just a boy, or what they now call a man-boy. It was also there when I learned about the law and about authority. And significantly, it was where I became part of something bigger than myself, and something I might have even been willing to give my life for.

Vance also noted that as an undergraduate in college, he heard people talk about war and the military when they really had no idea what it was like.

For all my grandma’s efforts, for all of her “You can do anything; don’t be like those [idiots] who think the deck is stacked against the” diatribes, the message had only partially set in before I enlisted. Surrounding me was another message: that people like me weren’t good enough; that the reason Middletown [his hometown] produced zero Ivy League graduates was some genetic or character defect. I couldn’t possibly see how destructive that mentality was until I escaped it. The Marine Corps replaced it with something else, something that loathes excuses. “Giving it my all” was a catchphrase, something heard in health or gym class. When I first ran three miles, mildly impressed with my mediocre twenty-five minute time,¹ a terrifying senior drill instructor greeted me at the finish line: “If you’re not puking, you’re lazy! Stop being [deleted] lazy!” He then ordered me to sprint between him and a tree repeatedly. Just as I felt I might pass out, he relented. I was heaving, barely able to catch my breath. “That’s how you should feel at the end of every run!” he yelled. In the Marines, giving it your all was a way of life. (176-177)

Occasionally a student would ask me what I thought of going into the service. I would say I believe every young man should do it unless he is physically disqualified or the Lord is earnestly leading him in a different direction. What Vance wrote above shows one reason why.

As I say when I review many books, there is so much more. Hillbilly Elegy is raw and intense. It grabs the reader, and most readers will grab it until, like my non-reading friend, they finish it. Besides the language, there is a lot of alcohol and drug abuse described.

As I said, while this is primarily a memoir and not a political book, the author clearly has become involved in politics. I knew very little about Vance until I read this book. Donald Trump picked Vance as his running mate in his successful attempt at getting re-elected. Their backgrounds could not be more opposite: Trump an wealthy son of a very wealthy man compared with a poor “hillbilly” who somehow made good. President Clinton had done something similar. In his case, he was the lower class son of a single mother who went to Yale Law and made good and his running mate, Al Gore, Jr., was the elite son of a U.S. Senator. Whatever you think of either Trump or Clinton, they both came up with a winning combination.

N.B. The 2018 edition of the book which we reviewed includes an afterword that was not in the original edition. In it Vance reflects on the success of the book and its reception among many varying groups and individual, including those he grew up with.

Note
1. To put a little perspective on this, I ran cross-country in high school. Our hilly course was about 2.7 miles. We all tried to finish in under 17 minutes; the best runners could do it in under 16 minutes. Granted, we were dressed differently and not carrying anything, but that might give the reader a bit of perspective.

Victor John and Dave Coles. Breakthrough Leadership. Beyond, 2025.

Breakthrough Leadership follows the authors’ book Bhojpuri Breakthrough, something even the title suggests. The original book described a widespread movement of God among the Bhojpuri people in northeastern India. This was a major change in the country and culture. Bhojpuri Breakthrough tells how it came about. Breakthrough Leadership focuses on the people who have led the movement. Their numbers run into the millions.

The important pattern for church growth here is that leaders make more leaders. It takes time to cultivate new leaders. This book shows the pattern. As with the first book, the emphasis is on Luke 10 where Jesus instructs 70 or 72 disciples. The emphasis on this relatively short book is that it is “quite simple.” John says, “If I offered something complicated, it would only hinder the reproduction of your ministry” (35).

Compared to Western churches, the method of raising leaders is not only less complicated, it is less formal. There are no titles, paid staff, or ordinations. Many of the leaders are illiterate oral learners. Indeed, the book spends quite a bit of time showing how those who learn the Bible orally can be as effective as those who can read.

A Christian leader can wield some authority through knowing Scripture and theology. But much more authority comes from tuning in to the Spirit of God and discerning creative ways to apply Jesus’ teachings in daily situations. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. But many times a situation changes, and we have to discern God’s best a moment’s notice. (402, emphasis in original)

A good leader can discern other potential leaders. They devote time to mentor them, observe them, and then release them to multiply the church. One leader, for example, had been working as a leader for fifteen years. In that time he had mentored about seventy others, who, in turn, were planting more churches and discipling new leaders themselves.

Some leaders are women. In the Indian culture where men and women tend to be more separated than in the West, men would not be able to effectively share with or counsel women.

It is almost a cliché that God loves variety and diversity. We see this from the vastness and variations in His creation. The same idea holds true for leadership. Not all leaders are the same. Still, there are some common characteristics: it bothers them that many people do not know about Jesus, and they are not merely planting churches, but developing more leaders to sustain them and share the gospel with even more people. Most leaders have learned to live or be sustained in God’s presence. (This actually sounds a lot like another book we recently read.)

The authors make a good pair. John is from India and has the direct experience. Coles is American, though he has spent many years overseas, and understands the typical Western outlook. Both are very careful in describing what the Bible calls spiritual warfare (see, for example, Ephesians 6:12-13). Westerners, even Western Christians, often dismiss or overlook this, or try to deal with it in the terms of psychology. With its background of multiple gods, people in India are far more likely to see and understand some things coming from the activity of spirits. Coles and John together wisely bridge the gap.

Many times, then, whether encountering a new village or neighborhood, a new person, or a government office, a good leader gets a sense of the spiritual atmosphere. This then will show how the leader should pray.

But I would ask, “Isn’t it possible for a Christian to carry strong drink or pornography or an illegal drug?” Of course that’s possible, though it’s not God’s will. If we believe it in the visible realm, why do we disbelieve it in the invisible realm?…How sad when Christians and their leaders don’t recognize Satan’s devices and miss the clues of evil, spiritual forces playing their tricks. (363)

They also note, however, how a positive spiritual atmosphere can influence others in a more godly way. For example, the Bible tells us that God anointed Saul as king. He was not anointed as a prophet. “But when Saul came into the presence of the prophets, the Spirit working in that atmosphere impacted him” (419).

One of the most important questions we try to answer is: What can we not see in this location, and what prevents us from seeing it? (1548)

We want to learn: “What felt needs does this community have that I could somehow address to help me stay here and better understand people? (1573)

One could argue that some of the specific traits which leaders should have should apply to all believers, but it is good to illustrate how things like self-denial and obedience are especially important among leaders. This means not only how a good leader obeys God but how they share and deal with such things in the lives of others (see Mark 8:34).

And as other books by Coles about overseas church growth such as Cabbages in the Desert and Living Fire, obedience is very important. Alas, this is something Western Christians often miss (your reviewer included) because of a sense that God will forgive me anyhow, so why focus on that? But if someone is your Lord (or lord, for that matter), you are obligated to obey him.

People don’t become transformed simply by acknowledging Christ, by just believing. That’s a first step, but a person has to apply and obey Jesus’s commands. (558)

Breakthrough Leadership also shows how leaders have to deal with certain problems such as the moral failures or departures of other leaders. Again, we see different examples. In some cases a separation may be necessary, but always the goal is restoration. And sometimes parties have to admit that perhaps someone was not truly meant to lead in the first place.

Ultimately,

We all have flaws and vulnerabilities; only by God’s grace can any of us bring forth good Kingdom fruit. And I love that God can always raise up new people. The Psalmist said, “It is God who judges:/ He brings one down, he exalts another” (Ps. 75:7). Our lives and ministries belong to him. (530)

The authors note that if we were to find a historical pattern for the church planters in more recent times,

The goal is not just Christians with sound doctrine. The goal is obedient disciples who make more disciples, people who begin to think and act as Jesus taught. (659)

Throughout the book, there is a sense that the growth of the church is organic. It grows, not by being programmed. The Holy Spirit creates a hunger.

As people come to faith, they see and especially experience new patterns, and the Holy Spirit enables them to grow into new patterns. They learn to come together and serve without having to instigate it. The gatherings reflect an environment of the Holy Spirit with everybody submitting to one another. (1045)

There is a lot more, but I would leave readers of this review with two thoughts. First, II Timothy 2:2 says, “[W]hat you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” This shows a “four generation” pattern of multiplication. Paul taught Timothy who is to teach “faithful men,” who are then in turn to teach “others also.”

Second, to sum up, John and Coles write:

As leaders we look forward to the day when we can say to those our ministry has touched, “I fought for you; first on my knees, and then with all I had, to bring you into fulness of life in the kingdom of Jesus Christ.” As the apostle Paul wrote, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have loved for his appearing.” (2 Tim.4:7-8 [NIV]) (2545)

Guillermo Maldonado. The Latter Glory of God Revealed. Destiny Image, 2024.

Many years ago when I was single, two older married friends of mine were reading a book titled What Wives Wish their Husbands Knew about Women. It was a big seller back then. The wives of both men were delighted that their husbands were reading the book. Both of them noted some very positive changes in their relationships as their men read the book.

However, about six months later, their husbands’ changes were less profound. No, they did not go all the way back to their behavior before they read the book, but people get set in their ways fairly early in life, and it is hard to maintain significant changes. It was more like three steps forward, two steps back.

I realize that over the years I have read and reviewed many books on the Christian life. Some had an immediate impact on me. I may have written that I would not mind re-reading one or two of them again. Have I done that? No. In the overall scheme of my life, those books mostly did not change things that much because for better or worse I am a creature of habit like most of us. Right now, my prayer is that The Latter Glory of God Revealed will effect a change in my life.

As I began reading the first chapter, I sensed the Holy Spirit moving. That usually does not happen when I read a book, even a profound Christian book. This book is a combination of a few testimonies and some interesting Bible studies focused on the glory of God. The author states his goal in the subtitle: How to Walk Under the Blessing of the Glory Cloud.

Any reader of the Book of Exodus has a basic understanding of what is meant by the glory cloud. During the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt to Canaan, they were led by a cloud. The cloud contained the manifest presence of God. After the Tabernacle was built, the cloud often remained in the Tabernacle. The presence of God not only led them, He protected them, healed them, gave His Spirit to some of them, and sometimes judged them. Moses was especially close to the Lord, and we are told that he and the Lord spoke face to face.

Pastor Maldonado shares that he has had similar experiences of the presence of the Lord—His glory—in his Miami, Florida, church and in evangelistic meetings he has witnessed worldwide.

He notes that “The cloud was the means of transportation Jesus used to leave this earth and the one He will use to return” (200, see Acts 1:9 and Revelation 1:7).

In one sense, his teaching is very simple. Christian believers have the Holy Spirit living in them, so it becomes a matter of making His presence known. He notes the need for repentance and receiving wholeness from God through Jesus.

The problem in many cases, he writes, is that the “glory has departed.” That is called ichabod (literally “without glory”) in Hebrew. Prayer and fasting are critical. One chapter is titled “Bring Back the Chabod [glory] to the Church.” Acts 3:21 speaks of God’s desire to bring the “restoration of all things.” That includes the glory of Eden before the Fall.

When God’s glory comes, miracles happen. Maldonado speaks of many people coming to submit to Jesus even in countries where another religion is the majority. He bears witness to healings, creative miracles, and reconciliations. These are all things that God wants and that His power brings about.

The glory—the person of Jesus Christ—is the realm where all things happen easily. We do not have to strain, stretch our faith, or fight unbelief. It is where we rest to see God at work. The Father’s plan is for you to have a daily encounter with His glory and rest in Him. God is leading the church in this end time megacycle. (127)

Yes, the book teaches quite a bit about rest and resting in the Lord. “If you want to see the glory of God, do not fight against change; fight against stagnation.” (152)

The book also warns against limiting God. Much of the time we do not expect much from Him. “His name, ‘I Am,’ carries with it the prohibition to limit Him. If we limit Him, we are definitely telling Him that He is not God…” (193-194) As J. B. Phillips might say, then your God is too small.

In the Old Covenant, God lived in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple. But God’s plan is to have believing people as His Temple, as in I Corinthians 3:16. “God designed man to be the only living being who, wherever he goes, carries and manifests His glory” (212).

When Jesus said he would be giving power to His people to be witnesses for Him and to Him on Pentecost (see Acts 1:8), Maldonado says that Jesus was saying, in effect, “I give you My glory and My power to prove that everything I have said is true, that the kingdom of God has come, and that I am the Christ” (220).

Yes, let us indeed be Christ-bearers. Let the glory come. Come, Lord Jesus. And let us pray that in, say, six months from now, the glory will be even heavier and God more glorified.