On Reviews
Jesus Land has certainly gotten its fair share of reviews, published in places as diverse as Essence, GQ and New York Times. All but one of the reviews have been flattering, and that was published in a throwaway weekly you've never heard of by a woman you've never heard of who has a fixation with the word LAID (Freudian, perhaps?)
Seriously. It's been a great ride so far.
It's interesting to see what different reviewers focus on, be it the family dysfunction, rural racism, or religious zealotry. Jesus Land certainly contains all those elements. The best, most insightful reviews have mentioned what lies at the core of the book - my relationship with my brother David, how it was tested by fire and ultimately prevailed. The worst reviews appear to be simple rewrites of the dust jacket.
Writing and publishing such a personal book has been a bizarre experience. After years of pecking away at JL in a dank corner of my bedroom, here it is born to the world, its fate taken from my hands. It's out there for the world to interpret at will, for reviewers to praise or piss on, and I have no chance for rebuttal. Except in this blog.
So here are my favorite reviews:
Daily Kos
Entertainment Weekly
NY Times
Seriously. It's been a great ride so far.
It's interesting to see what different reviewers focus on, be it the family dysfunction, rural racism, or religious zealotry. Jesus Land certainly contains all those elements. The best, most insightful reviews have mentioned what lies at the core of the book - my relationship with my brother David, how it was tested by fire and ultimately prevailed. The worst reviews appear to be simple rewrites of the dust jacket.
Writing and publishing such a personal book has been a bizarre experience. After years of pecking away at JL in a dank corner of my bedroom, here it is born to the world, its fate taken from my hands. It's out there for the world to interpret at will, for reviewers to praise or piss on, and I have no chance for rebuttal. Except in this blog.
So here are my favorite reviews:
Daily Kos
Entertainment Weekly
NY Times
7 Comments:
i apologize for not reading the book yet. it was the nyt review which drove me to want to find out who this wonderful brave person was so i decided to google her. i grew up in a fundamentalist christian home and never felt spiritually at home there. It was the inherent racism( the curse of ham), blessed organized violence(war), the sexism(eve being adams rib), and good / white vs evil/black dialectics.
i appreciate my parents now because of their generosity and honesty after years of being devout god fearing folks; they can now years after all is said and done that if they had an opportunity to do it all over again. They would have engaged themselves with their children differently. For example engage in conversations rather than talking downward; showing more affection between each other, not placing greater adult burdens upon us prior to adulthood. All water under the bridge but still caustic.
i was not always one to make lemonade, but thanks to my personal needs growing up i found my private niches which for whatever purposes became uniquely-me. I am not a bad person. i think i might have made other choices if given an opportunity to explore them with the humans closest to me who were supposed to have been my guiding light. A dim light which i recognized would not lead me to the true meaning of why are we here.
In the church-hysteria, blasphemy, hypocrisy was rampant but shipered about in the corners and the shadows.
a spiritual peyton place.
it lead me to look and search else where to find a spiritual home , a state dynamic space of constant development, a spiritual science which instilled in me the desire to live for something vs to die for and to kill because the belief is so strong and it does not permit anythimg else to exist because it would constitute a threat which begs to be eliminated for the sanity of purity.
Thank you for sharing your soul and heart with us. I will be eternally grateful for your being you.
terribly underworked as a temp in brisbane. cruising nytimes dot com to look for more books to read and then release. found yours and am hoping it'll be released in australia.
if not, that's what the relatives in texas are for! supply me with good books!
i've read many reviews and am getting very impatient to leave work, order it via amazon, and wait impatiently to learn about david. i've already had my heart broken learning that the reasons why there were no comments about where david is now is that he died as a teen.
i look forward to reading this and then releasing it in brisbane via bookcrossing dot com.
Hi IHateToast - actually, Random House UK has released an export paperback edition in Australia with a different title: "Another Hour on a Sunday Morning."
Thanks for your interest!
Julia
Hi, My name is Marilyn LeBaron, Ervil's middle child from Anna Mae LeBaron. I just visited your website and thought it to be informative. I was very young when all this stuff happened and have not read much about my family history as it is not pleasant or lovely. God says to meditate on lovly things so I do. I write songs and attend regular worship and am in no way a mormon or a threat to my fathers defected followers. My children were tought about Jesus and that their grand father was a religeous wako. What got you intrested in this topic?
What are the estimated threats to the remaining children? What are the resources out there to avoid the chance of becoming a victiom of the LeBaron family curse that rises from my father's grave? Is the government still searching for the perpetrators? Who are they? I would'nt know. Ervil died when I was 16 and I was not endocrinated to do the evil things the other siblings are reported to have been. I was not old enough and my dad was in jail of gone much of my early teens so I feel lucky. I left home at 19 and did not speak ot my family much since.
Marilyn LeBaron
Hi Marilyn, you must be referring to the story I wrote for the Crime Library on the Ervil LeBaron clan:
story
I wouldn't know how to answer your question about falling victim to the "LeBaron Curse," but I think distancing yourself from the family is definitely a step in the right direction. Best, Julia
Yes. I agree. I don't spend any time with my 'other' relatives. The family I have near me are all Christians.
I have had more problems from the government because of 'who my father was' than from my 'other' family members.
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