Customer Reviews

I Thought My Father Was God: And Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

At first blush, I was not impressed with this collection of true-life vignettes collected from NPR's National Story Project. I would leaf listlessly about the book looking for something -- a sentence, a title -- that would catch my interest, and reading the piece (none of the selections, I think, are any longer than four pages) in a second or two. Initially I was disgruntled by the style and voice of some pieces; they would not have been out of place in the "Life In These United States" Reader's Digest feature.

I don't know why I did not shelf the book and pick up something else, but I am glad that I persevered (uncharacteristic for me: I am quite superficial and fickle, overdependent on first impressions) because as I kept reading, I found something within me responding to these stories. Reviewers here have heckled the abundance of sentimentality and reductive life lessons that pulse through these pieces, but they're seeking a literary sophistication from texts that never aspire to anything more than the urge to tell a story. (In the words of one writer included in the collection, "What do you do with a story like [this]? There is no lesson, no moral, barely even an ending. You want to tell it, hear it told, but you don't know why.")

With that provisio, the patient reader will find pieces here of quiet movement, emotional honesty, jaw-dropping coincidence (a lot of these), eerie dreaminess, and everyday wonder. I especially like Joe Miceli's "Taking Leave," with its glimpse of a world I hope I never know; Mary Grace Dembeck's "Act of Memory," which made me cry; "Your Father Has The Hay Fever" by Tony Powell, which is as lunatic as anything by S.J. Perelman; "Table For Two" by Lori Peikoff, and Nicolas Wieder's "Ballerina," stories of love, coincidence, and hope.

This book is filled with hundreds of vignettes--some funny and some moving, but almost every one interesting (and NOT saccharine as I sort of expected them to be). I pick it up when I walk by it, read one, and feel re-connected and less numb. Give this to someone you know who's tired (it's easy reading) or sad or disconnected from daily reading or daily life. It revives the reader. Great stories. I hope NPR does another one.

This book is exceptional. I have read many books by Paul Auster and this one, although not technically written by Auster is true to this author's fascination with life's mysterious twists of fate. The stories assembled here are captivating, often deeply moving and sometimes hilarious.

The fact that these are all real stories makes the reader relates strongly to the people involved. These are rich with familiar characters (the grumpy neighbor who hates kids in the title story, the soft spoken grandfather who does not dare confront his wife in "Revenge", etc.) I could not put the book down.

In this day and age where so much attention is given to shallow story lines and pre-packaged entertainment, how refreshing it is to come across these incredible, yet so believable, stories that have happened to ordinary people.

The French version of the book has been published before the American version. This is how I got advanced reading of this wonderful collection of stories. Tip: Most of them make great bedtime stories as well. My 7 year old daughter really enjoys it.

I got the book from my public library but I want to buy it so I can go back to it again and again.

"I Thought My Father Was God: And Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project" is a superb and unusual book that manages two wonderful things: it confirms the universality of the human experience and it amply demonstrates that everyone, EVERYONE has a story to tell.

The experiences told in this eclectic and endlessly absorbing collection are varied and run the gamut of experiences life has to offer. There are stories of love, loss, regret, joy, sorrow, and growing up. The subjects that bring on these emotions are as varied as a pet bird, a sharp slap from a parent, a new piece of clothing, a weekend alone at the beach, a party in which the increasingly annoying guest of honor gets his face pushed into the cake, a reconnection with a former lover, a loose car tire, and a harrowing audition for a sleazy adult film.

Some of the stories are flatly told, facts laid out on the page. Others take loving care with the details. Either way, the accretion of all the stories gives the reader a most satisfying sense of membership by the end of the book--membership in the human race.

Based on the sample stories recited as a monthly feature on NPR, I purchased this book ro read while on a couple of long plane rides, thinking the short stories would be well suited to the task of keeping the mind entertained among the numerous waits and between the various interuptions becoming a standard of airline flight. For the first several stories, I felt I was on the right track. But my initial enthusiasm soon waned, as the repeated themes and predictability of outcome of most of the stories became more apparent.

Surely, there are some real gems in this catalog of American life, but other efforts range from the plain to the rediculous. I'm sure that Paul Auster had a difficult task in selecting among the many entries submitted, but eliminating a few of the "miracle" tales would surely have made it a better read.

The organization of the book unfortunately emphasizes the sameness of many of the stories by grouping essays about objects, or war, or whatever, one after another. I suggest that an interested reader pick stories at random, to keep the topics fresh...

In some ways I THOUGHT MY FATHER WAS GOD could be called "Chicken Soup for the NPR Soul." Like the titles in the familiar "Chicken Soup" series, this is a collection of stories from ordinary individuals that have a way of reaching readers. The selections in this volume stemmed from National Public Radio's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED National Story Project. The book is edited by noted writer Paul Auster who selected the stories included in this volume from nearly four thousand entries. The stories themselves range from the humorous and heartwarming to the serious. We meet a variety of people such as a woman who questions life after death when a lost ring is discovered; an artist who falls in love at first sight with a woman absorbed in Dickens' GREAT EXPECTATIONS; and a man who went to a Halloween party dressed as a priest, but gets a taste of ministry from people who have no idea its just a costume. These are juts a sampling of the many stories included in this work. The tales are varied, but share one common characteristic. All find meaning in ordinary events as we interact with the people in our lives: family members, friends, and sometimes strangers. Most of the contributors are not professional writers but each story is the creation of someone who has a desire to share an often times ordinary but deeply held story that needs to be told. When we finish reading the stories in this volume, we may be tempted to say "I can tell a story like that" and since these stories are so human and real, we probably can!

This is definitely not Chicken Soup and i couldn't be happier. I'm forcing myself to read this book slowly so the stories can soak in. These are REAL stories written by REAL people, not cheesy forwarded email drivel. The texture of so many voices, so many perspectives, so many characters is just wonderful. Anyone looking for fairytale endings is going to be disappointed, but if you're interested in hearing what touches the minds and lives of your fellow humans, this is a treasure trove.

There's this guy (you don't remember his name). He picks up a hitch-hiker and they travel together for a week or so, until the hitch-hiker pulls a gun and shoots the driver (our narrator) several times (twice in the head). The driver does not die, though. The hitch-hiker argues with the guy. Asks him why he is not dead. The driver says, take me to a hospital, I won't say who did it. The hitch-hiker (eventually) drives him to hospital. The guy never tells.

This is just one story in the middle of the book (just one story among a couple of hundred. There are a couple of hundred (almost) as good. Take this one. Right at the start. Woman walks down a street. Spots a chicken. The chicken is walking down the street as if it thinks it was people. The woman follows the chicken until it arrives at a house, knocks at the door and disappears inside.

In-between these two extremes, you get love and death and slapstick and all manner of humdrum banalities sent that wee bit off-kilter by the presence of something quite remarkable (what Auster would more than likely say was chance).

Everybody said I should dip into this book, read it around and alongside other books, but I didn't and I don't recommend that approach. You should read this like a Paul Auster novel (a novel albeit teeming with narrators and stories and juxtaposition). Certainly you can feel his editorial presence in the occasionally clipped nature of the sentences. Not that that is a bad thing. By no means. Auster's editorial presence binds this project. He is the water in the flour.

Sure it's easy to criticise. The only difference between some of these stories and the stories told to you by loved ones and work colleagues every day is the fact that they were written down and submitted to Paul Auster for consideration. saying all of that, in these scary days we now live in, there is reassurance here and a sense of something larger than the outline of the shadows we cast. Life can be remarkable you want to exclaim at times. It can also be boring and annoying and not what you want it to be.

And yet, for all that, the good far outweighs the bad. Some people might say this (all of this) is intellectual Reader's Digest. I say back: life is Reader's Digest.

If you don't know that, you're an ostrich.

I was not looking for this book but in a thrift shop looking at other things. A woman came out of the back room with books in her arm that had just come in and she walked toward me with I Thought My Father Was God and handed it to me saying this looks like a good one, as if she knew me. I took it and have hardly been able to put it down since. I have read some of the stories aloud to my husband and we have laughed together and we have cried. When I wake in the morning I know the people are there waiting to tell their odd, miraculous, glowing, quiet stories and that in these stories I find threads of myself. I hope this is an ongoing book project because it is treasures like this that will spread the word that the world is not only about the dreaded stories on the 6 o'clock news - that these are the kind of stories that have the power to change the way we see our own lives and the lives of others no matter how small or insignificant they seem. These are the stories we need to understand that the world is more than the nightly news or the mostly violent movies on the screen today but the world is full of good, funny, clever, and an 'average sadness' of people trying to understand the Mysterious that happens to them in their lives.

Imagine my surprise when I received a letter explaining that my story (T321 Interpretation of Dreams)would be included in this tremendous work! Once I received my copy, I sat down to read, and hours later, I realized what a wonderful collection of stories this is!

Be prepared for this: those of us who submitted stories did not do so to be "discovered" as authors. We simply wanted to tell our tales. Therefore, (as I have seen from some reviews) you may find the writing elementary. We are not authors, and did not feel the need to adhere to the rules used by professional authors. These stories are written as if told around the dinner table over a cup of coffee, to dear friends, and others who are interested in what makes us each different. The experiences we each have makes us what we are, individuals.

If you enjoy stories about real life, some funny, some melancholy, then this is the read for you. Enjoy!