Customer Reviews

Shades of Darkness

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This is a marvelous book. Since other reviewers have described the gist of the story, I will add only that throughout it has the ring of truth. I lived in Federalsburg, where Brummel grew up, for 10 years in the 1980s, and everything he says about life there is entirely credible. (Even in the 80s, racism was strong.) I served in the Navy at about the same time Brummel was in the Army, and though I was never anywhere near Viet Nam, the stories I heard from combat vets give me no cause to doubt anything Brummel says about his experiences there.

It should be said that the book has its flaws. There are a number of minor errors that a good copy editor would have picked up, for example. There is also a tendency to give minor incidences the same attention as more important ones; this leaves the reader feeling that he is periodically led down a cul-de-sack. Nor is Brummel himself a model of perfection. He did many things most people would not want to admit publicly. And THAT is the beauty of this book, for Brummel DOES make those things public. This book presents George Brummel, warts and all. You may not find him altogether likable, but you find him believable and interesting, and (in the strictest sense of the word) admirable.

I know that some writers get their friends to write reviews of their book, and some reviews that appear here may have been written as favors. Mine was not. I met Brummel briefly at a book signing, but everything I know about him I learned from his book. I don't owe him anything. I recommend this book because it deserves serious attention -- not because Brummel is black, not because he is blind, but because he tells an extraordinary story extraordinarily well. This is a book that Oprah could recommend, and should recommend, without hesitation.

Great read. The book is a frank and entertaining journey through a large part of a good man's life, warts (small surface blemishes) and all. Take a trip from Eastern Shore Maryland, to Korea, Germany, Vietnam, Ohio and throughout these United States with the author. This reader finds the author's strong positive spirit, as reflected in the book, a spirit worthy of respect and emulation. If you believe in doing the best you can with what you have, then you will be glad that you read this book.

George's book is well written, funny, and at times very emotional. Shades of Darkness is the best memoir I've read this year, by far. And this thing's got it all -- growing up in the segregated South, the jungle combat of Vietnam, surviving as a blinded Veteran, overcoming one's hardships through sheer determination, and above all, hope.

Sgt. George Brummell has written a very special account of his life. We are presented a soldier's eye view from a veteran of both the Korean and the Vietnam conflicts. There is a great deal of irony in Mr. Brummell's examination because an exploding land mine ruined his eyesight. Like many who have been decorated with medals for their valor, George speaks of his fallen friends and acquaintances as the real heroes. Against the odds, Mr. Brummell transforms a life that could have easily descended into self-pity and bitterness into one of accomplishment, embellishment and leadership.
Mr. Brummell has faced some brutal challenges that to many of us might not seem natural--and yet his descriptive writing style is as deceptively easy and natural as the tumble of die. The ache of growing up poor and black, without a mother's tenderness, in rural Federalsburg, Maryland jumps to life for the reader. With Grandma, Uncle Noble, and other relatives, there is still plenty of love and family support to go around. The book has some wonderful moments of jubilation, wildness, humor, irony, and humility; these good existential moments are balanced with the shades of darkness that the book title promises: absurdity, awkwardness, shame, fear, despair, danger, and terror.
Writing a review of Mr. Brummell's very personal book is not any easy task because it is broad and eclectic--not to insinuate unorganized--in its depths. George is in the dark in only one sense of the word. His sources for learning and uplift include the lyrics of Marvin Gaye as well as the dialogues of Plato. The book ends but you exit knowing the story isn't over. There is nothing faked about George's account so relax Oprah--you can make Shades of Darkness a book club selection with complete confidence. We're talking raw, upfront, and funky.

This book was written from the heart - from love, from disappointment, from fear and from strength. The story barrels ahead like the rat tat tat of an M-16 and it is riveting. It reads like a movie and it would make a good one. In an instant author George Brummell goes from leader of men to a blinded casualty of war. I love his use of language. Describing his experience in Vietnam, where he lost his sight, Brummell says, "A chunk of Shark's left eye fell to the ground and lay there, staring at me." Speaking of his mother, who all but gave him away, he says, "Through a crack in the outhouse door frame I saw a woman squatting on top of the toilet seat, her apple-red dress up around her light brown rear."

He writes about his loves, and they are many, the unpopular war, the confrontation with his mother and the battle to make a life for himself as a blind man. Through it all, his "specialness" is recognized by all who knew him and by those who now have "read" him.