Amazon.com Review
In
Up from Here, bestselling author Iyanla Vanzant speaks directly to the black men of America, offering specific spiritual tools for transforming themselves into better husbands, fathers, partners, and friends. Assuming that most of the men who pick up this book are already in some kind of crisis, Vanzant writes:
This is what I hope for you: that you'll be able to see that where you are now, dark as it may be, has a purpose.... When you're low there's nowhere to go but up--and together we can go up from here.
Vanzant (
In the Meantime) profiles seven men, all with different problems, to show readers how they can dig themselves out of the spiritual messes they make. We meet Roy, whose deep-rooted anger and big-ego attitude get him fired from his job; he's reluctant to take responsibility for any of this. There's Eddie, a 50-year-old "nice guy" who's threatened by the fact that his wife earns more money and recognition than he does. After each profile Vanzant launches into a lengthy section called "Transformation Plan and Power Tools." This is where she dishes out her "up from here" advice, such as "Instead of comparing yourself to others, take an honest assessment of where you are in your life." We like Vanzant because she cuts through black male stereotypes and despair without sugarcoating the fact that spiritual work requires hard and even (gasp)
emotional work. Take heart, according to Vanzant: no one has sunk so low that he can't rise up from the crash and burn of his past to claim his true identity and power.
--Gail Hudson
From Publishers Weekly
Suggesting that many African-American men have lost their sense of self-love, self-respect and self-worth due to the death of their inner spirit, popular TV talk show host Vanzant (In the Meantime; One Day My Soul Just Opened Up; etc.) writes that the traditional masculine persona of work and physical action has failed them in these high-tech times. Men, Vanzant says, must confront their feelings of rage, guilt and shame by exploring the secret parts of their inner selves to become transformed into fully functioning people, conscious of how their thoughts and actions affect themselves and others. In her customary warm, engaging Mother Wisdom voice, Vanzant presents portraits of seven black men with crisis-filled lives to serve as examples for how her transformation process can aid them in removing their emotional toxicity to produce permanent, genuine change. They're to use her "power tools" of awareness, acknowledgment, acceptance, confession, surrender, forgiveness, understanding, commitment, responsibility, "right action" and stillness. While each of the case studies is carefully chosen and somewhat fulfills its role, the cumulative effect of the stories falls short when compared to Vanzant's detailed, exacting analysis of the men's emotional defects and her prescribed cure for their ailments. Closer attention to the portraits would have added more punch and significance to her wise, lucid conclusions, lifting this book far above the usual New Age spirituality and advice book fare. (May) Forecast: With Vanzant's huge popularity, enduring track record as a bestselling author, six-city tour and a national ad campaign, sales should be brisk. But, as indicated by the relatively weak sales of Sarah Ban Breathnach's A Man's Journey to Simple Abundance, it's an open question whether men will in large numbers buy a self-help book written by a woman; though of course women buyers will take up some of the slack.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
