Customer Reviews

Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul (Christian Softcover Originals)

5 star:		(77)
4 star:		(23)
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1 star:		(13)

 

 

It has taken me a couple days to write this review. There is so much to write about on the one hand, yet it is so simple on the "big picture" side.

First, the writing. It is excellent. At times I just wanted to savor the words and the thoughts, yet Mr. Kendra's writing style kept me moving. That is a wonderful combination, when you want to slow, but the writing contains an innate excitement that keeps your eyes moving.

Next, the "memoir". Mr. Kendra's life is the ancillary aspect of the book. He is the main supporting cast to the Father Joe. Mr. Kendra is brutally honest about himself - one can not help but think that he was a better person than he portrays himself to be.

The book tracks the author's spiritual life starting with an affair with a married woman when he was 14 years old which causes him to meet of Father Joe, with whom he mantains a relationship for the next few decades. After that meeting, the author spends several years planning and plotting to become a Benedictine monk. After finding comedy as a new object of worship, he completely abandons his faith, loses a wife and almost a second before he comes back to the fold.

That rendition gives the book such short shrift. It is filled with thought-provoking ideas about self, faith and relationships without getting sappy or tawdry. Father Joe is his friend, father, mentor and spiritual adviser who stays with him throughout leading him without pressure into self-realization.

If there is one theme of this book, it is not God or religion or even faith. It is the ability of a person to delude himself. Father Joe is instrumental in showing Kendra that lesson. The Benedictine idealism is Kendra's illusionary safe harbor that allows him to stray - it will always be there to redeem him if he needs it.

The book obviously has depth of feeling. It has gentle humor and brazen candor that prevents it from being sappy. It also contains philosophy and quotations from great thinkers that add a universality that will appeal to non-Catholics and even non-Christians. Those additions give the book an intellectual heft lacking in books like The Five People I Met in Heaven.

One criticism and word of caution. Have a dictionary close by - Kendra's vocabulary is envy inspiring. The criticism is that I wish he had included a few more translations of terms and passages.

I can not recommend this book highly enough. This is a book I know I will return to - if not to read in full, then at least to enjoy again portions of its wisdom and wit.

Along with a gaggle of smart (just ask us!) young men in New York, I worked with Tony Hendra on a number of humor projects two decades ago. Beyond our wit, we all shared one attribute --- in the words of the lone female on the team, "You're all guys who don't want to go home." My reason was prosaic: no girlfriend. Hendra's, it turns out, was more complicated.

Tony Hendra never talked about his background. I assumed that he was, like the rest of us, -in flight from something --- you don't gravitate to comedy because you're happy. But the nub of it was, Hendra had been happy. And for an amazing reason: He had been, at least in his own mind, a teenage monk.

It happened this way: "I was fourteen and having an affair with a married woman." Well, not quite. This English schoolboy was taking religious instruction from an eccentric Catholic named Ben Bootle and spending too much time with Bootle's wife. Lily Bootle was a tortured soul, drawn to the "sins of the flesh" and terrified of them as well. She fell hard for this brilliant student (even if he did crib the math homework from his schoolmate, Stephen Hawking). The difference in their ages? Didn't matter. They began with kissing. His hand moved south. And then her husband walked in.

Ben Bootle's response was not what you would expect: He took Tony on a little trip. Two hours on a train across England, a half hour on a ferry to the Isle of Wight, a short bus ride --- at last they reached a Benedictine monastery called Quarr Abbey and Ben introduced Tony to a big-nosed, floppy-eared, knobby-kneed, grinning monk. Tony knelt at his feet to confess. "No no no no," Father Joseph Warrilow said. "Sit down next to me." He took Tony's hand. "Now, dear, tell me everything."

Tony did. When he finished, Father Joe said, "Poor Lily." That was it: no judgment, no prediction of brimstone, just total acceptance of Tony's story, complete forgiveness for what happened ("You've done nothing really wrong, Tony dear") and endless compassion for Lily's pain and loneliness. Penance? "I think you've already done a good deal of penance," Father Joe told the astonished boy.

Father Joe stood. "I didn't want him to go," Hendra writes. "I'd never felt so safe and secure with anyone in my life.....I wanted to tell him everything that had ever happened in my few years. There were a million things I wanted to ask him."

But Father Joe had to be up early. "We'll see each other again and talk and talk. God bless you, my dear."

"Again the hug, again the swirl of skirts, again the super-sandals squeaking away down the linoleum," Hendra writes. "Then silence. And peace."

Over the decades, Hendra would lose that peace, even as he gained the world. (Many of you will remember him as "Ian Faith," the cricket-bat wielding manager of the crazy rock band featured in the legendary mockumentary "Spinal Tap.") While he spares us the gory details, he spares himself nothing --- he is, he tells us, a loathsome husband, a despicable parent.

But don't forget the subtitle: "The Man Who Saved My Life." Father Joe's message to Tony never changes, but at last Tony hears it. It's not a theological message; it's nothing the Pope and his Cardinals would turn into doctrine. Indeed, it's as corny as a Beatles refrain: "All you need is love." And, of course, the Beatles' follow-up: "And in the end/the love you take/is equal to the love you make."

It's one thing to hear a lyric. It's a very different thing --- a very rare thing --- to have someone walk the path ahead of you, showing you by example how to live nobly. No wonder readers are rushing to buy this book; it puts them in the room with one of the greatest men of the century. A monk. An unknown monk, at that. And funny-looking. And not so strong on the doctrine. What a magnificent joke on all our pretty concepts of enlightenment!

There's a happy ending to this book, a very big one. On one level, it's Tony and Joe's happy ending. But if you step back a bit, you'll see it can be yours too. And you don't even have to be a Catholic --- or even a Christian --- to experience it.

If you're only going to read one book this summer....

--- Reviewed by Jesse Kornbluth

It was touch-and-go whether I'd finish FATHER JOE or throw it across the room. I nearly gave it up after the first couple of chapters: Hendra is the sort of writer who'll enlist six sentences to do the work of one, and who can't stop himself from turning all his people into laughable stock types. But so many friends had recommended the book that I persevered.

When Father Joe came on the scene, he did capture my interest. The odd thing is, he doesn't seem to have captured Hendra's. Father Joe remains a question mark throughout, a mystical force of big-eared benignity. The author seems to have no curiosity about who the man is or how he became himself -- in fact, Hendra's shocked to discover, late in the book, that Father Joe had a very full life of wide-ranging interests and relationships. Hendra sounds taken aback to think Father Joe had other reasons to exist than to counsel him.

For me, this persistent narcissistic strain made the book unpleasant and frustrating to read. I don't mean to be unkind, and don't doubt the sincerity behind Hendra's tribute. But Father Joe could have been more interesting than a mere angelic enigma, whereas Hendra himself is not so interesting as he thinks he is.

Brilliantly written, enormously enjoyable to listen to!

I've said it before, I find it amusing when reviews of the same book can be so contradictory; it's too religious; it's not religious enough; it's a great book about a great man (Fr. Joe); it's a book that is really about Tony Hendra, and so forth.

The book is what it is, a (very less than perfect) man's encounter over a lifetime, with his faith as sometimes guided by a gentle and wise but also less than perfect priest.

From a religious standpoint, it is the story of a faith journey, not a perfect journey (whose is?), but a journey none the less from which one can learn. From a literary standpoint it is a well told story that sometimes had me laughing so hard that I nearly wrecked the car (insert your joke about St. Peter's Gate here).

If you are a very right wing conservative, don't bother reading this, otherwise, you might find something in it that you enjoy.

The book is a very quick, easy read, and pleasant enough, but in the end isn't really very good.

Hendra conveys his affection for Father Joe well, and you find yourself wishing you'd met someone like him. But beyond conveying that affection, Hendra offers us little insight.

I agree with other reviewers who call the book narcissistic. I'd go so far as to just say that Hendra is just a guy who likes to talk about himself a lot and used Father Joe as an excuse to do that in writing. You hear far more about Hendra than you do about Father Joe, only in none of the ways you'd want or expect from what purports to be a spiritual memoir. You get every detail of his TV project or magazine project or who he likes and doesn't like or his personal politics. He drops names of famous people and talks about Spinal Tap and Monty Python alot. But when it turns to Hendra himself, he can't look. He gives you vague, succinct, general acknowledgements that he's not a perfect guy, but won't discuss it in any detail -- and thus you miss out on where the spiritual struggle lies.

The subtitle of the book is "The Man Who Saved My Soul." I don't think Hendra has paid much attention to what that means, or if he did, he chose to avoid writing about it. There may be a great book to be written about Father Joe, but Hendra's not the guy to do it.

Father Joe is the story of author Tony Hendra's faith journey. It is an inspiring, heartfelt story of the four decade relationship between the satirist and a surprisingly wise Benedictine monk named Father Joseph Warrillow.

Hendra, one of the original editors of National Lampoon, captures the beautiful essence of a truly God-inspired man. The portrait that emerges is of one a cleric who is a credit to Church, a cleric who is a credit to his Christ. Father Joe is truly a saint. Hendra, in a startling departure from his normal style, portrays Father Joe's actions as non-judgmental, caring, and engaged.

This is the most powerful book I have read in a long time. If I have one criticism, it is Hendra's prodigious talent occasionally clouds this great story. I would occasionally find myself re-reading a particularly clever or unique descriptive phrase. However, you should properly view those words as the musings of a less talented, envious and jealous writer.

Father Joe is a tribute to one of the most charismatic, selfless, spiritual mentors of our time. At times it is funny; at times it will bring tears to your eyes. Tony Hendra experienced a miracle. I am grateful he shared the story with me. Read the book. You will be grateful he shared it with you.

This book is wonderful. First, it's a compelling read; don't be put off by the earlier review here that says it forces recourse to the dictionary--I found nothing of the sort, and any editorial dumbing down of Hendra's zesty style would have been disastrous; second, it is very funny. But most important: Father Joe is rendered so brilliantly, so tenderly, that just reading about him could change the reader's life as knowing him changed Hendra's. I see why Andrew Sullivan begged us to read this book in his NYT review; and I agree with him that the subsequent furore about Hendra's relationship with his daughter has no bearing on the wonder of the book itself. You laugh, and then suddenly you find yourself about to cry: you aren't sure why--is it because Father Joe is what we all yearn for even in our cynical times? a person who is really in touch with that Other we call the divine; a guide, a mentor, someone we can really trust. Other reviewers here stopped reading before the end, because of a dislike for Hendra himself. That's a shame because I think the end is excellent. And of course we dislike Hendra, or at least some of his behaviour! He means us to, his whole point is how far off the rails he went, how far astray his life had gone, despite his wordly success. I agree that the subtitle, The Man who Saved my Soul, is too much; but Father Joe does recall Hendra to himself, help him see what matters, and save his second marriage. I think the book is the more convincing because written by a human being as flawed as most of us. It's detailed and particular and yet touches somtething universal: the desire for goodness, goodness with a sense of humor and without posing and piousness. To recreate such a rare and intangible thing on the page is a colossal achievement.

...yet found reading much of the remainder to be like wading through a quicksand of Hendra's self-absorption.

When Tony described his confession to Father Joe, the latter no mental giant but clearly a man of great insight, humility and understanding, I was moved to tears. Joe seemed a 'healer' in the best sense, working to show the three people involved in Tony's early dabbling in adultery the essence of their problems, rather than dwelling only on the accidental. I also was very impressed by Tony's turning to Joe during his night of feeling a crisis of faith, and Joe's welcoming availability. Joe's not coming up with pat answers, much less 'tough love,' and thereby invalidating Tony's feelings could be a lesson to many.

Yet Father Joe fades into the background fairly quickly. Once Tony sees his vocation to become a satirist, the self-absorption (often sheer selfishness) so characteristic of the rest of the book turns Joe into a vague character to whom Tony can turn in a crisis or remember with fondness, but no longer the subject of the book. The work becomes more a tribute to the writer's abilities as a satirist than a story of Joe's influence.

Tony Hendra's Father Joe occasionally has the quality of candy: a joy, a treat, and 20 minutes later . . . . a little disappointment mixed with craving for more. In this memoir of considerable style and charms, Hendra, an accomplished writer and performer who first came to fame as an editor and writer at the satire magazine National Lampoon, explores his relationship with Dom Joseph Warrilow, an English Benedictine priest who served as his mentor and friend, off and on through the years, from Hendra's adolescence in the 50's until Warrilow's death in the late 90's.

First, a couple of jarring notes: there are several outbursts of left-liberal polemic that are misplaced. Father Joe comes across in the memoir as relaxedly apolitical. Perhaps the diatribes merely recount Hendra's attitude at the time. He depicts Father Joe ever so gently taking him to task for a lack of charity and a closing of his heart in his strident attitudes while not contradicting his political leanings. Later, the reader gets the sense that Hendra is defending his current views. It all has little to do with Father Joe and everything to do with Tony Hendra. Given our memories of 1980's events, it's extremely hard for us to take someone seriously who praises "men of peace like . . . Mikhail Gorbachev" for magnanimously and unilaterally ending the Cold War and liberals within "the stubborn populations of Europe - my contemporaries and their parents - who for all their manifest mindlessness and endless tribal squabbles had remained a generation of peace, refusing to buy Reagan's fatuous cartoon of the Russian people or be cowed by his cowardly weapons of mass murder" (p. 237) Perhaps Hendra should consult Russians such as Natan Sharansky and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn about how the Russian people were treated by the Evil Warmongering President Reagan. An angry aside decrying "the Church's relentless intolerance of different sexual orientations" (p. 269) comes out of the blue without warning.

Given that this is book is a good deal about Hendra, it's telling to see where he focuses. The best of the book is Part One, his description of his childhood encounter with Sin, Monasticism, and Father Joe. He spins a good yarn about family, adultery, and rites of passage that brings many smiles and sighs to the reader. The suddenly, at the outset of Part Two, 20 years have gone by, and Hendra is removed from England to Southern California, contemplating suicide in a drug-addled state. He gives very little sense of the first ten of those twenty years -- he alludes vaguely to the difficulties of launching his career in America, the details of his first marriage are sketchy, and he never even bothers to name the daughters from that marriage. In part two, Father Joe is absent more than present, and Hendra presents himself schizophrenically -- self-effacingly making light of his talents, yet only detailing the periods in his life when he achieved some amount of worldly success. Thus Father Joe dwells on topics with little relation to Father Joe: National Lampoon, Not the New York Times, Not the Wall Street Journal, Spinal Tap, and Spitting Image. None of this would be news to Hendra. He indicts himself over and over again for self-obsession and self-centeredness. He is a man with a profound sense of sin, struggling to believe in a God of unbounded love.

But let's grant that this book is as much about Hendra as it is about Father Joe. This is an utterly endearing book. Hendra, a gifted writer with a wonderful tone and an excellent ear, conveys the precious quality of presence by reflecting on its opposite, absence. Between the two, by the grace of God, we encounter the Other, our neighbor. Everything in Father Joe's story suggests he had a special grace, a fabulous gift from God, that enabled him to enter into true friendship and community with quite a few people, to truly listen and truly love, making him present even when absent. Hendra navigates between absence and presence in this book, his goal being to make Father Joe alive, both for us and for himself. Still, we worry about Hendra, for whom presence and absence have formed difficult waters throughout his life, sometimes nearly unnavigable -- the book contains a vivid anecdote recalling a chilling early intimation of damnation as a cold eternal absence of God. It's not clear whether or how strongly he sees Father Joe as but one earthly face of the ever-present Christ. Salvation appears here as the unfinished drama in a tragic world, the Eternal Cliffhanger. Hendra emphasizes Father Joe as his connection to the transcendent to such an extent that we wonder whether he will succumb to despair now that Dom Warrilow has left him here on earth.

Fascinating and heartfelt true story of how the former editor of National Lampoon was taken to a monastery on the Isle of Wright at the age of 14 to serve penance for having an affair with married woman only to be surprised by a monk named Father Joe who befriends him instead of punishing him. Instead of heaping guilt on the young man he objectively interprets the affair as being much a problem between wife and husband with Hendra an indirect victim. From his support and sincere affection, Father Joe provides young Hendra a father figure and a sanctuary so strong that Hendra has a desire to partake in the life of a monk. The story is told with humor as one would expect from Hendra but also evolves into a more serious nature as Hendra goes to Cambridge discovers Monty Python style satire and Dudley Moore that inspire a penchant for humor that provides success. However, with maturity, personal doubt and damage to his first marriage Hendra falls on personal hard times and while keeping contact with Father Joe he periodically returns to the Isle of Wright for the inspiration and affection of Father Joe. Hendra has a good turn and he credits Father Joe who seems incapable of judging but is a supportive priest, a religious leader that many would love to know. Hendra inspires humor throughout the book as one would expect but this is a serious book, which you well appreciate by the epilogue. My favorite humor part, and there are many, is the way Hendra proposed on a freeway to his current and second wife, true, bizarre and funny. A book that makes a busy family man reflects on life and to consider making time for the family while having time to laugh.