An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "CATHOLICS CALLED IT Our Lady of Perpetual Help, but to the Jews and Protestants who also took turns worshiping there, it was just "the chapel..." (more)
Key Phrases: spoiled priest, Air Force, Martin Luther King, Pope John (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

James Carroll, now a columnist with The Boston Globe, was ordained a Roman Catholic priest to the intense pride of his family, especially his father who had studied for the priesthood but had dropped that vocation to become eventually a leading military officer in Vietnam. However when he preached his first sermon, before his family and colleagues of his father, Carroll felt impelled to express disapproval of the war. This was taken as an act of filial disloyalty causing an enormous breach between father and son. Each was a man of principle, each convinced that he was right and the other wrong. Carroll made the breach complete when he left the priesthood to marry. This is his poignant account of a divide that reflected wider American society.

From Publishers Weekly

Carroll, a novelist (Family Trade), poet and former priest, has written a moving memoir of the effect of the Vietnam War on his family that is at once personal and the story of a generation. His father was an Air Force general who won his stars by being one of the bright lights of the FBI-and a favorite of J. Edgar Hoover-rather than by working his way up through the military. One of Carroll's four brothers dodged the draft in Canada, another was an FBI agent ferreting out draft dodgers and he himself-a former ROTC Cadet of the Year at Georgetown-became an "antiwar" chaplain at Boston University who demonstrated in the streets but ducked the cameras for fear his father might recognize him. Carroll was earmarked from birth to be a priest (his father had trained for the priesthood but dropped out just before ordination) and received personal encouragement from Pope John XXIII and Cardinal Spellman, a family friend. Carroll's heroes evolved from Elvis to Pope John to Martin Luther King, rebel theologian Hans Kung, poet Allen Tate (his mentor) and Eugene McCarthy-most of whom his father considered enemies. After much personal struggle, Carroll left the priesthood, married and became a father, but the break with his own father was never repaired. At once heartbreaking and heroic, this is autobiography at its best.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 279 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; First Edition edition (April 4, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039577926X
• ISBN-13: 978-0395779262
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #851,446 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Thought-Provoking, Honest Examination of Conscience, May 1, 2001

By	D. Smith (Winchester, VA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us (Paperback)

This is an honest, soul-searching book about a man who questions his faith and his father's role in the Vietnam War. Rather than taking a "moral high ground," like one of the earlier reviewers claimed, I found Carroll's writing to be very humble and self-effacing. He readily admits to "standing in the background" on many of the early protests.

Although Carroll's questioning of religious AND military apologists will no doubt raise the ire of dyed-in-the-wool conservatives, his perspective is a breath of fresh air to those of us with moral questions of our own.

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars powerful and evocative, October 4, 2000

By	Laura (VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us (Paperback)

As a reader in my early twenties, until I read this memoir it was difficult for me to understand the enormity that was the Vietnam War to American consciousness. The power of the book is two-fold. The first is the picture Carroll paints of his family -- a distinctly American creation with which most readers can identify, especially those like myself who had a military upbringing. The second is the historic moment in which Carroll's emotional story unfolds. Until this book, I never truly felt what a blow the Vietnam War was to many Americans' faith in their country. The pathos in the story lies in the fact that while Carroll finds himself politically and ideologically in the tumultuous era of the 70's, he simultaneously alienates himself from his beloved father and the values the older man embodies. Some readers may think that the memoir is overly sentimental, yet the sincerity and introspection with which Carroll writes makes the emotions in the book more evocative than the more tired tear-jerkers out there. The complex emotions of love and regret are expressed beautifully by the close of the book. One of the most emotionally evocative books I've read in a long time and also an informative glimpse into a period of American history.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Of course it's one-sided!, July 11, 2004

By	ML (Jamaica Plain, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us (Paperback)

I was so surprised by reading the few negative reviews of this book that I felt obligated to comment. Yes, his story is one-sided, and no, he doesn't explore his father's perspective much, or what the proponents of war were really thinking. And yes, he obviously feels that he was in the right to protest the war.

But this isn't a book about his father, the Catholic Church, and especially not about the Vietnam war. This is simply the story of his life, as he presents it. Like the best of books, you root for the protagonist, you sympathize with him, and sometimes you wish he had done things differently. It is a fascinating, absorbing read and a good glimpse into the spirit of a time that I am too young to know myself. It's also an odd juxtaposition with the current events of our nation at war.