Review: A Handbook of American Prayer
Editorial Review - Kirkus ReviewsReformed convict leads country to rediscover the power of prayer, only to find himself slipping down the road to demagoguery. Plumbing a more realistic and downbeat vein of Americana than is found in most of his pulpier oeuvre, Shepard (Valentine, 2002, etc.) looks into the dry landscape of modern religion, with all its mundanity and unexpected transcendence. Wardlin Stuart is an angry cuss, a bartender who humiliates a drunk woman trying to cadge a free drink, later accidentally killing her boyfriend when he comes looking for blood. Stuart has his moment of clarity in prison, and starts writing pleadful poems that he calls prayers and adopting a method of delivering them to whatever deity is out there, which he calls "prayerstyle." It's an unaffected spirituality, naked in what it wants and honest about not knowing who or what is listening. But the point is that it works, and his life and attitude begin to improve. What we see of the prayers themselves are pungent little poems ("Listen, this night is a black border/around the photograph of life"), full of desire and heartbreak, and it's actually not hard to believe that a collection of them could become a phenomenal bestseller, as happens not long after Wardlin's release. His life then follows the standard arc of the American messiah: publicity tours, talk shows, attacks from fundamentalist Christians, and a rapidly growing and increasingly creepy fan base—not to mention a stalker who looks exactly like one of the recurring figures in one of Wardlin's prayers. Just when Shepard is settling into the book's groove—a dryly witty and sharply observant tone—he veers sharply off-track by sending Wardlin on a badly conceived trip south of the border, an indulgently rambling, psychedelic-inflected dark-night-of-the-soul that gets wearisome fast. A writer who has also hinted at, instead of fully grasping, his considerable ability, chokes, rather spectacularly botching what could have been a small modern classic.
Review: A Handbook of American Prayer
User Review - Elizabeth - Goodreadsthere was something about this book that kept me at bay. it may be the pile of more interesting books on my TBR list. i just couldn't find interest in the plot or the characters. and half way in, page 147, not much was really happening. it was time to move on. Read full review
Review: A Handbook of American Prayer
User Review - Koz - GoodreadsWent to a bookstore and there was a whole shelf of these being given away for free (http://www.concordfreepress.com/on-ha...). Figured it was worth a try. Well, I finished it. It was decent. The ... Read full review
Review: A Handbook of American Prayer
User Review - Jack Haringa - GoodreadsI'm hesitant to try to write any kind of review of this novel for fear of running out of superlatives. I also run the risk of sounding like a sycophant. I like nearly everything Lucius Shepard writes ... Read full review
Review: A Handbook of American Prayer
User Review - APShaw - GoodreadsNot sure about this one. The premise was of interest and there were sections that I certainly enjoyed, but there were other parts I merely "got through" and I was left unconvinced by the end - perhaps ... Read full review
Review: A Handbook of American Prayer
User Review - Hester - GoodreadsThis book was in the science fiction section of the library, which testifies to the current sad state of affairs, as it is a book about religion, not fantasy. There is no evidence of anything ... Read full review
Review: A Handbook of American Prayer
User Review - Cameling - GoodreadsWardlin is a cynical bartender with no great love for people when he's receives a 10 year prison sentence for manslaughter. In prison, following a fight with a fellow prisonmate in which he comes off ... Read full review
Review: A Handbook of American Prayer
User Review - Emily (Heinlen) Davis - GoodreadsThis book was not at all what I expected. I did not expect this book to be written by a murderer. It was a really weird book. I'm not sure I liked it. Also, the book had several grammatical errors in it. Read full review
Review: A Handbook of American Prayer
User Review - GoodreadsPretty weak.
Review: A Handbook of American Prayer
User Review - ann - GoodreadsThis book opened a vein of American culture I haven't really seen explored a lot: the nature of "spiritualism". Perhaps I'm not reading the right things, but I feel like I've never seen this issue so ... Read full review
