Baby Jack: A Novel [Hardcover]

Frank Schaeffer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 22, 2006

Todd Ogden, an acclaimed painter with work in museums around the world and a seemingly successful thirty-year marriage to the Brahmin Sarah, is living and painting in his two-hundred-year-old Massachusetts farmhouse when his youngest child, Jack, chooses the Marines over college. Feeling puzzled and ultimately infuriated by his son’s incomprehensible switch to “the other side,” a situation only further aggravated by his disapproval of Jack’s girlfriend Jessica, Todd ultimately turns his back on his son. Not long after the start of Gulf War II, Jack is deployed to Iraq and killed a week later, trying to end off an ambush.
From this point on, Baby Jack tells the story of the family Jack leaves behind, of his parents trying to survive as their marriage shatters, of Todd’s own breakdown and after-the-fact attempt to understand his son’s life — and of Jessica’s perseverance and the baby to whom she gives birth after Jack’s death.
Baby Jack is a powerful and moving human story of sacrifice and redemption, which takes its readers into a territory way beyond the everyday.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Schaeffer, the author of two nonfiction books based on his experience of having a family member on active duty in the Middle East, treats similar themes in his new novel. Self--absorbed painter Todd Ogden and his patrician wife, Sarah, are stunned when their 18-year-old son, Jack, the product of prestigious prep schools, enlists in the marines. Moving from cajolery to cold fury, Todd finally refuses to speak to his son. Meanwhile, Jack finds the camaraderie and dedication of his drill instructors and fellow marines to be a welcome change. The majority of the novel, however, is devoted to how the parents deal with their guilt and grief when Jack is deployed to the Middle East and killed one week later. In reductive fashion, Schaeffer contrasts the full-blown patriotism of the enlisted with the selfishness of the upper classes. An irreverent God makes an appearance, as does the ghost of the dead marine. In the end, too many broad strokes and the wide variance in tone weaken the novel's effect, although the vivid portrayal of the appeal of the military sets the story apart from much war fiction. Given the subject, expect some off-the-book-page interest. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"Schaeffer makes this concise chorus of social conviction moving and memorable by emphasizing emotion..." -- USA Today

"Tour de force... Baby Jack is a triumph and a modern masterpiece. Read it and be moved." -- Ward Carroll, Military.com

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 356 pages
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf; First edition. edition (August 22, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786717165
• ISBN-13: 978-0786717163
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,859,643 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

New York Times best selling author of more than a dozen books Frank Schaeffer is a survivor of both polio and an evangelical/fundamentalist childhood, an acclaimed writer who overcame severe dyslexia, a home-schooled and self-taught documentary movie director, a feature film director and producer of four low budget Hollywood features Frank has described as "pretty terrible," and a best selling author of both fiction and nonfiction. Frank's three semi-biographical novels about growing up in a fundamentalist mission: "Portofino," "Zermatt" and "Saving Grandma" have a worldwide following and have been translated into nine languages. Jane Smiley writing in the Washington Post (7/10/11) says this of Frank's memoirs "Crazy For God" and "Sex, Mom and God": "[Schaeffer's] memoirs have a way of winning a reader's friendship...Schaeffer is a good memoirist, smart and often laugh-out-loud funny...Frank seems to have been born irreverent, but his memoirs have a serious purpose, and that is to expose the insanity and the corruption of what has become a powerful and frightening force in American politics... Frank has been straightforward and entertaining in his campaign to right the political wrongs he regrets committing in the 1970s and '80s...As someone who has made redemption his work, he has, in fact, shown amazing grace."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this book, September 2, 2006

By 

John Schaeffer - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Baby Jack: A Novel (Hardcover)

Frank Schaeffer is my father, and as such you might expect me to be biased (which I won't deny), but if you look at any of the other reviews on any of his other books on this site (which I encourage you to do) you will see that I have written nothing about them. I never even put a plug in for Keeping Faith-A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps, which we wrote together. I have read and liked them all, and I hope you also will read them, but never before has one of his books affected me as this one has. I see how the life of a family very like my own might have played out if things had been just a little different, if someone like me had never returned from a war zone. The experience of reading BABY JACK was akin to George Bailey's in It's a Wonderful Life, watching the life of everyone around him play out as if he had never existed. Reading BABY JACK was both a surreal and wonderful experience at the same time and I hope that you will read Dad's book and glimpse how the life of a family can be forever changed by a single choice or a single event.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Once a Marine: BABY JACK relived, September 6, 2006

By 

James L. Kring (La Mesa, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Baby Jack: A Novel (Hardcover)

Great war stories are not about combat. They are about the fractured lives and wounded souls of the combatants -- in and out of uniform. In BABY JACK, Frank Schaeffer captures the raw humanity of Jack Ogden's story as no other other war novel I have read. He also offers the hope that understanding, reconciliation, and spiritual renewal will unfold in each life that humbly seeks it.

Late yesterday afternoon UPS delivered my copy of BABY JACK. Last night, mesmerized by Frank Schaeffer's brilliantly voiced characters, I read the story through in one sitting. I relived my experiences as a young Marine through Jack; I fell in love with Jessica; and, I hated everything I saw of myself in Todd.

Many years ago I, like Jack Ogden, chose the Marines over college. I was squad leader and "honor Marine" in boot camp. Like Jack, my father did not come to my graduation. I had seen him only two times as a young child.

In DaNang, our perimeter was overrun by North Vietnamese Army regulars. I was blown off the road by an explosion from a rocket propelled grenade while taking a wounded Marine to an aid station. I spent the night trapped in deep grass clutching a grenade and waiting to die. My sister worked for Robert McNamara. Every day she checked the Pentagon "Casualty List" searching for my name.

Like Jack, I volunteered to serve but my family was drafted into the war. Through BABY JACK I relived my experiences as a combat Marine and a was given the opportunity to experience how my family suffered in untold ways as have countless others.

Great literary novels are character driven -- and this is one for our time.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quite a book, October 8, 2006

By 

Miland Joshi (Birmingham, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Baby Jack: A Novel (Hardcover)

This is a novel about a family who lose a son to the American war effort in Iraq, told from the perspective of several subjects. While fiction, it is based on the stories of real people, including those of the author himself, and makes for moving reading in the view of this UK civilian. Some of it may shock readers with its unconventional religious perspective, but it expresses an honest view worthy of being heard. Readers of the non-fiction works that Schaeffer has already written about his family's story as a 'military family' will have some idea of what to expect. This is a powerful story that encourages patriotism and respect for the virtues of soldiers that serve their country without stint. Highly recommended, but for adult readers only, in view of some of its contents.