An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us [Large Print] [Hardcover]

James Carroll (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1999

An American Requiem is the story of one man's coming of age. But more than that, it is a coming to terms with the conflicts that disrupted many families, inflicting personal wounds that were also social, political, and religious. Carroll grew up in a Catholic family that seemed blessed. His father had abandoned his own dream of becoming a priest to rise through the ranks of Hoover's FBI and then become one of the most powerful men in the Pentagon, the founder of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Young Jim lived the privileged life of a general's son, dating the daughter of a vice president and meeting the pope, all in the shadow of nuclear war, waiting for the red telephone to ring in his parents' house. He worshiped his father until Martin Luther King, Jr., the civil rights movement, turmoil in the Catholic Church, and then Vietnam combined to outweigh the bond between father and son. These were issues on which they would never agree. Only after Carroll left the priesthood to become a writer and husband with children of his own did he come to understand fully the struggles his father had faced. In this work of nonfiction, the best-selling novelist draws on the skills he honed with nine much-admired novels to tell the story he was, literally, born to tell. An American Requiem is a benediction on his father's lief, his family's struggles, adn teh legacies of an entire generation.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If the Civil War pitted brother against brother, the Vietnam War is best understood as pitting father against son. Some of Vietnam's longest lasting battles were fought in heavy rages and even heavier silences across the dinner table. James Carroll is a veteran of many such skirmishes. A novelist now, this book is his story of what it was like to be an anti-war priest in the '60s while his father was an Air Force general deeply involved in Pentagon planning. What makes the book particularly moving is that Carroll comes to realize that his father is no mono-dimensional saber-rattler (indeed, he suspects that his father's military career came to its sudden end because of the stances he took inside the corridors of power against expanding and intensifying the war). But the terrible truth was that neither the father nor the son ever managed to transcend the boundaries of their particular roles to meet each other in a candid, reciprocal relationship. And Carroll is honest--he tells us this, painfully. A very fine book, which along the way reports interestingly on some nearly forgotten '60s episodes. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Carroll, a novelist (Family Trade), poet and former priest, has written a moving memoir of the effect of the Vietnam War on his family that is at once personal and the story of a generation. His father was an Air Force general who won his stars by being one of the bright lights of the FBI-and a favorite of J. Edgar Hoover-rather than by working his way up through the military. One of Carroll's four brothers dodged the draft in Canada, another was an FBI agent ferreting out draft dodgers and he himself-a former ROTC Cadet of the Year at Georgetown-became an "antiwar" chaplain at Boston University who demonstrated in the streets but ducked the cameras for fear his father might recognize him. Carroll was earmarked from birth to be a priest (his father had trained for the priesthood but dropped out just before ordination) and received personal encouragement from Pope John XXIII and Cardinal Spellman, a family friend. Carroll's heroes evolved from Elvis to Pope John to Martin Luther King, rebel theologian Hans Kung, poet Allen Tate (his mentor) and Eugene McCarthy-most of whom his father considered enemies. After much personal struggle, Carroll left the priesthood, married and became a father, but the break with his own father was never repaired. At once heartbreaking and heroic, this is autobiography at its best.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 379 pages
• Publisher: G. K. Hall & Company (October 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0783887655
• ISBN-13: 978-0783887654
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,126,610 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James Carroll was raised in Washington, D.C., and ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1969. He served as a chaplain at Boston University from 1969 to 1974, then left the priesthood to become a writer. A distinguishedscholar-in-residence at Suffolk University, he is a columnist for the Boston Globe and a regular contributor to the Daily Beast.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars powerful and evocative, October 4, 2000

By 

Laura (VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us (Paperback)

As a reader in my early twenties, until I read this memoir it was difficult for me to understand the enormity that was the Vietnam War to American consciousness. The power of the book is two-fold. The first is the picture Carroll paints of his family -- a distinctly American creation with which most readers can identify, especially those like myself who had a military upbringing. The second is the historic moment in which Carroll's emotional story unfolds. Until this book, I never truly felt what a blow the Vietnam War was to many Americans' faith in their country. The pathos in the story lies in the fact that while Carroll finds himself politically and ideologically in the tumultuous era of the 70's, he simultaneously alienates himself from his beloved father and the values the older man embodies. Some readers may think that the memoir is overly sentimental, yet the sincerity and introspection with which Carroll writes makes the emotions in the book more evocative than the more tired tear-jerkers out there. The complex emotions of love and regret are expressed beautifully by the close of the book. One of the most emotionally evocative books I've read in a long time and also an informative glimpse into a period of American history.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Thought-Provoking, Honest Examination of Conscience, May 1, 2001

By 

D. Smith (Winchester, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us (Paperback)

This is an honest, soul-searching book about a man who questions his faith and his father's role in the Vietnam War. Rather than taking a "moral high ground," like one of the earlier reviewers claimed, I found Carroll's writing to be very humble and self-effacing. He readily admits to "standing in the background" on many of the early protests.

Although Carroll's questioning of religious AND military apologists will no doubt raise the ire of dyed-in-the-wool conservatives, his perspective is a breath of fresh air to those of us with moral questions of our own.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Of course it's one-sided!, July 11, 2004

By 

ML (Jamaica Plain, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us (Paperback)

I was so surprised by reading the few negative reviews of this book that I felt obligated to comment. Yes, his story is one-sided, and no, he doesn't explore his father's perspective much, or what the proponents of war were really thinking. And yes, he obviously feels that he was in the right to protest the war.

But this isn't a book about his father, the Catholic Church, and especially not about the Vietnam war. This is simply the story of his life, as he presents it. Like the best of books, you root for the protagonist, you sympathize with him, and sometimes you wish he had done things differently. It is a fascinating, absorbing read and a good glimpse into the spirit of a time that I am too young to know myself. It's also an odd juxtaposition with the current events of our nation at war.