New!Websites for Authors
Tertulia Logo
New!Websites for Authors
The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War That Came Between Us, James Carroll

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

James Carroll

Paperback
Regular price$19.99With free membership trial$9.9950% off your first book+ Free shipping
In Stock– Ships within one business day

Do you recommend this book?

Yes!

No

Winner:National Book Award -Nonfiction (1996)
In this dramatic, intimate, and tragic memoir, James Carroll recovers a time that none of us will ever forget - a time when parents could no longer understand their sons and daughters and when young people could no longer recognize the country they had been raised to love. The wounds inflicted in that time have never fully healed, but healing is something that Carroll accomplishes in telling his family's remarkable story. The Carroll family stood at the center of all the conflicts swirling around the Vietnam War. Lieutenant General Joseph F. Carroll was the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency through most of the war, a former FBI man who helped choose bombing targets but distrusted his fellow generals who wanted to use the Bomb. His wife, Mary, was a devoted friend of Francis Cardinal Spellman, the hawkish military vicar, yet she felt sympathy for antiwar priests and tried to balance her devotion to her husband with love for her sons. This shattering history takes its shape from the choices made by three of the five Carroll sons. Dennis, marked by fierce conscience, became a draft fugitive and exile. Brian, deeply loyal, joined the FBI and was assigned to track down draft resisters and Catholic radicals. James, wanting to fulfill the dream his father had embraced and then abandoned, became a Roman Catholic priest. But he quickly aligned himself with the very Catholic radicals and draft resisters who were one brother's target and another brother's support. While the war in Southeast Asia raged and the streets of America exploded with protest, Joe and Mary saw the precious world of their own family, centered on a gracious house on Generals' Row, collapse. None of the Carrollswould ever be the same.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
  • Publish Date: Apr 1st, 1997
  • Pages: 352
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.49in - 5.34in - 0.74in - 0.68lb
  • EAN: 9780395859933
  • Categories: • Historical• Wars & Conflicts - Vietnam War• Religious

About the Author

Carroll, James: -

James Carroll was raised in Washington, D.C., and ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1969. He served as a chaplain at Boston University from 1969 to 1974, then left the priesthood to become a writer. A distinguished scholar-
in-residence at Suffolk University, he is a columnist for the Boston Globe and a
regular contributor to the Daily Beast.

His critically admired books include Practicing Catholic, the National Book Award-winning An American Requiem, House of War, which won the first PEN/Galbraith Award, and the New York Times bestseller Constantine's Sword, now an acclaimed documentary.

Praise for this book

"Autobiography at its best." -- Publishers Weekly

"A tragic, moving book about a family torn apart by the Vietnam War, a young man looking for God, a writer finding his voice." -- Boston Magazine

"I cannot recall being more touched by a book about a real family since John Gunther's Death Be Not Proud." -- The Washington Post

"A flawlessly executed memoir." -- National Book Award citation

"A work of the heart. . . . perhaps the most moving drama of fathers and sons that I have ever read."
-- Washington Post Book World

"A magnificent portrayal of two noble men who broke each other's hearts." -- Booklist

"A personal and political memoir in a class by itself. Rich in ideas and historical detail, a personal story that makes you think - about politics, parents, children and God." -- USA Weekend

"One of those books that even as you are reading it, you know you will never forget. James Carroll is well recognized as a master storyteller. In this, his own story, he touches us as only a gifted writer can, and more so because it is true." -- David McCullough

"Of all the memoirists who have set out to 'tell the truth' of a life and a crucial relationship, very few have ever succeeded so convincingly as James Carroll, in this poetic and achingly honest account of his lifelong struggle with his father to find a basis for mutual respect and love, an effort finally foundering on the Vietnam War. It is the story, never told better, of a generational faultline splitting households all across America. I couldn't put it down till its last, haunting sentence." -- Daniel Ellsberg