Reviewed for NetGalley.

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At the outset, it bears noting that the cover for Hands Off My Gun, by Dana Loesch, is positively striking!

Loesch provides a summary of her experience with firearms, from the time she was a young child to the present, concentrating on issues of personal responsibility and the need to protect herself and her family in light of the many threats she has received. It is interesting that some from among the ranks of those seeking greater gun control laws, are so quick to bandy about the very threats that leave others (like Loesch, who merely seeks to voice her own position on the issue), convinced of the need to carry arms for protection. (I shudder to think what would happen if words of a similar nature were spoken, or written, or tweeted as the case may be, by those who seek to guard and preserve Americans’ Second Amendment rights.)

Hands Off My Gun provides a discussion of the importance of teaching others, including children, about firearms and firearm safety. I, like Loesch, grew up in a home where these lessons were taught. We knew, as Loesch says, that “guns aren’t toys.” They are tools of self-preservation and of self-protection. If this were not the case, why would so many of those who seek to disarm Americans, surround themselves with paid, gun carrying, bodyguards?

Loesch shares statistics that speak to where most gun crime is committed and she shares stories of some who have been saved because they or someone else carried. As a current-events case-in-point, we can only wonder how many more would have been harmed in Oklahoma when Traci Johnson was recently beheaded at Vaughan Foods, had a gun-carrying hero not shown up at the scene.

I commend Loesch for providing summaries regarding the passing of the Second Amendment, and of the history of gun control laws and race relations in America. Had Martin Luther King been allowed to carry—as he sought to do, but was denied—he might have lived to provide an even greater impact on American society and race relations.

Having listened to and seen Dana Loesch on numerous cable and radio interviews, I quickly picked up on her “voice” in this work. It is a voice with which I am comfortable—even (especially?) including the sarcasm it oft-times presents. I do find myself wondering, however, how influential a work of this nature might be if told “straight.” That is, I wonder to what extent others would entertain a fair reading of the history and meaning of the Second Amendment if they did not “hear” the voice of the one telling it, one they’ve been warned in advance, to ignore . . .

Reviewed for NetGalley

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Dear Leader, by Jang Jin-Sung, is a thoroughly enlightening tale. It presents a unique opportunity to “visit” North Korea firsthand.

As a young man, Jin-Sung rose to the level of “poet laureate” to Kim Jong-il. Artists enjoy a privileged position in North Korea, where they are used as tools of the totalitarian state. Indeed, Kim Jong-il stressed that he ruled “through music and literature.” Jin-Sung reports that Jong-il was not “a dictator by means of physical control, but . . . in a more subtle and pervasive sense—through his absolute power over the cultural identity of his people.” This is a sobering idea for citizens of a free society to consider. The principles regarding the importance of free speech, of a media that is responsible to the people and not to the government, and of representatives who are to see first to the interests of their constituents and not to the State, take on new meaning . . . 

When Jin-Sung, a favored citizen, is summoned to meet his “Dear Leader” personally, he discovers to his surprise, that Jong-il is—human—just a person like any other—who, shorter than Jin-Sung had imagined, even wears two-inch heels so as to appear taller. Eventually, these facts are added to the knowledge Jin-Sung gained from having read literary works from the free world. He begins to seriously question things. When circumstances occur that leave him in fear for his life, he escapes.

From the opening pages, in which Jin-Sung discusses the procedures used to take him and others to a meeting with Jong-il, Jin-Sung displays the awful truths of North Korean society. It is startling to consider the lengths the regime goes to in order to keep the truth from its people and to protect its “Dear Leader.” Citizens are taught that their loyalty to the leader is the supreme goal, second to nothing—not to themselves and not to their families or children. Jin-Sung expands upon the practicalities of the North Korean system, from the use of food distribution centers to the starving of the masses, to the special treatment the favored receive. Tragically, North Korea’s people live with the everyday truth that their lives are of no value to their nation’s leadership. 

Jin-sung tells his story of escape from North Korea, a harrowing experience. He underscores the particular evils that North Korean women face as victims in the world’s sex-slave market. Overall, this was an engaging and enlightening read. It emphasizes the vulnerability of our own free society in the face of any who would argue for the value of the State over that of the individual . . . 

Reviewed for NetGalley.

Hello from the Gillespies is scheduled for publication, November 4, 2014.

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It is hard to know where to begin with a review for Hello from the Gillespies, by Monica McInerney, as there was so much to enjoy about this story. When Angela Gillespie sits down to write her annual Christmas letter, just as she has done every year for the past thirty-three years, she is overcome with frustration and hurt. Rather than write her typical missive, one that tells only good news, Angela takes the opportunity to vent. She is frustrated with her grown children who can’t seem to get things in order, with the fact that her ten-year old son still has an invisible friend, and with her husband, who has been ignoring her. Angela has no intention of sending her letter out. But when her youngest is hurt in an accident, she must rush him to the nearest hospital many miles from her family’s outback sheep station. Shortly thereafter, she is surprised when she begins to receive email responses to her letter, and she is devastated to learn that several readers have even passed the letter on to their friends. Angela knows she cannot keep the secret from her family forever, and when her husband and children learn the truth about what she has been thinking and feeling, she has a lot of questions to answer. So, what will they do when later, Angela suffers from confabulation, a condition whereby she forgets her real life and believes that the fantasy-life she’s been living in her mind, is real?

Hello from the Gillespies tells a tale that could certainly happen and does so with heart. I don’t know if it is a consequence of reaching a “certain age,” but it seems there comes a time in life when the surface truths are not enough—when a person longs to just tell it like it is. Oh, but the consequences can be troublesome! In this story, readers will find out the many ways that truth can be hurtful—and healing.

The characters in this story were fully fleshed out and their relationships every bit as complicated as family relationships can be in real life. I appreciated the willingness of Angela’s family to pull together, and their ability to find understanding . . . and healing . . . and forgiveness. Hello from the Gillespies had me at “Hello” and entertained me all the way through to “The End.”