UPDATE: Nothing like having the author stop by and chime in. See the comments below while I try to get my swelled head through this doorway.
Welcome to Fred
Brad Whittington
When I was about 75 pages from the end of this book, I decided that I’d write a review. (I read a lot more books than I review. I just don’t bother to review something unless I have something relevant to say about it.)
At that point in the book, I had been finding it very enjoyable even though nothing very remarkable had happened to the protagonist. Hence the post title — the day-to-day stuff happens to Christians, too.
Toward the end of the book, some significant stuff does happen to the protagonist, but it’s largely internal and/or spiritual in nature. For me, this just kicked it up a notch, as Whittington is good at even writing the mundane in such a way that it’s enjoyable.
Enough generic rambling. What’s this book about?
It’s about 250 pages. (insert rim shot here)
The story is told from the perspective of Mark Cloud, a Baptist preacher’s kid (PK) in the late 60s and early 70s. Born in Fort Worth, Texas, the family moved to Ohio when Mark was 8. While there, he had some of the usual kid adventures, as well as encountering some things that would play a role in his life later. While in Ohio, Mark becomes good friends with a neighbor kid nicknamed “M”, and both become enamored with the hippie culture. Being fairly insulated, they don’t know about free love and drugs, but do love the clothes, hairstyles, and general counter-culture attitude of the hippies.
After four years in Ohio, the family moves back to Texas, but this time to a miniscule town called Fred (hence the book title). Even though Mark is not a Yankee (a fact that he makes very clear), he’s told that he dresses and talks like one. After all, in a town drowning in denim, no one else is wearing white bell bottoms and olive-green shirts. And the talking isn’t so much accent as it is the fact that he speaks a bit more eloquently than his peers, nearly bursting a blood vessel when he eventually gives in and tries to learn to say “ain’t” and such. As someone who moved from Philadelphia to suburban Atlanta when I was 12, this fish-out-of-water aspect was heavily identifiable to me, but still often hilarious.
Eventually, Mark acclimates to his surroundings and his peers to a degree, but eventually realizes that he’ll never fully fit in, partly because he’d have to totally divorce himself from who he was, and partly because PKs always get treated differently. This struggle runs through much of the book, but sometimes is moreso in the background.
As do most adolescents, he starts having some doubts about some of the things that he believes. But he never expresses them for fear of general impropriety (as the preacher’s kid) as well as fear that his father might disown him. This is another theme that runs through much of the book, but is somewhat resolved by the end.
A couple of things impressed me in particular. While there were several themes, issues, and occurences throughout the book that all converge in the last few chapters, Whittington doesn’t just wrap up everything in a nice little bow. Rather, the convergence is moreso an acknowledgement of how God uses things in our life that (at the time) seem to have no relevance but (later) turn out to be very important.
The other thing that struck me was another issue which was never specifically stated, but with which I identified readily. Mark’s dad often peppers his speech with big words and “odd phrases” — and is once actually described by Mark to one of his sisters as “you know that’s just how Dad talks”. Yet, the book, narrated by an adult Mark, has much of the same chracteristics. Mark clearly “turned into” his dad.
Apparently, from what I read, Whittington’s writing improves with the second and third books in this series. I thought it was pretty darn good to start with, so this evaluation has me looking forward even more to reading more of his work.
In a chat in the comments of another post, my friend Joe mentioned that he had heard/read that there were some great Christian guys that are/were in the Atlanta Braves organization.
There’s a blogger out there who always refers to his famous pastor and author as “my friend and mentor, John Doe*”. Now besides the fact that I’ve got a better Friend and Mentor, am I the ony one that sees this name-dropping and immediately thinks “Tommy Flanagan”? I keep waiting for his next comment to be about “my wife, Morgan Fairchild”.
