Booklist
(Jan 2006)
Sanders, a sage of the Midwest, uses autobiography as a vehicle for far-reaching
reflections on nature and humankind. Here he considers awe, that “rapturous,
fearful, bewildering emotion.” Writing with the plainspoken precision
and wholesomeness he’s cherished for, Sanders revisits his boyhood,
singling out moments of awe instigated by the glory of nature, his tempestuous
father and steadfast mother, and painful awakenings to death, racism,
and war (during the 1950s they lived within a heavily guarded bomb-making
compound in Ohio). As Sanders comes of age, he struggles to reconcile
his budding passion for science with his family’s religious practice.
Then in college, he drops physics, appalled by science’s connections
to the military and the Vietnam War. Interleaved among vivid memories
are graceful present-day reports on the joy radiating from his baby granddaughter
and the sorrows attendant on caring for his Alzheimer’s-afflicted
mother. Sanders’ thoughtful reflections on the cycles of life, the
flashpoints of awe, and our quest for meaning are quietly revelatory.
reviewed by Donna Seaman
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