The Bookroom: Remembrance and Forgiveness, A Memoir (ACU Press 2024)
When I learned that Leonard Allen had published a memoir I was eager to dive in. I have been reading Allen’s writings since the late 1980s but I had no idea that we had so many things in common (on one level). I was amazed when he dropped names like:
Florence (Alabama),
Larimore Home,
Mars Hill Church of Christ,
Winter Garden (Florida),
“Between 1988 and 1993.”
I grew up in Florence, Al. Our house in St. Florian was less than five miles from both Mars Hill Church of Christ and the Larimore Home. I also lived in Kissimmee (FL) just down the road from Winter Garden. And from 1988 to 1993 I was on a major road of discovery.
I read my first Leonard Allen book (with Richard Hughes and Michael Weed), The Worldly Church, when Jim Martin at IBC encouraged us to read it. Those years, 1988-1993, correspond with the literary output of Allen. I read during those years: Worldly Church; Illusions of Innocence; Discovering Our Roots; Cruciform Church; and Distant Voices. Honestly, I was ill-equipped to process some of the readings at the time but hopefully, by grace, I have grown. Two of these I listed way back in 2006 as among the “Ten Paradigm Shifting Books” for Bobby Valentine (see that blog here).
There is no wrong way to write a memoir if one is introspectively honest enough and then brave enough to put that self-awareness on paper (or computer screen). The Bookroom is well written and easy to read. Allen divides it up into four sections with thirty-one short chapters. I quite literally had the book read in an evening. The Bookroom is both thematic and chronological in its telling of the journey. The book explores themes that in some ways pervade Allen’s writings: coming to terms with how history molds us profoundly even when we are unaware, and embracing graciously the story we are in.
In other words we remember and we forgive (the past and ourselves) in order to live and be aware of God’s work in our time, even in our own life. One of my favorite lines, and perhaps sums up the book, is “Remembrance is necessary, but so, too, is forgiveness” (p. 43). Grace has a way of stripping us of our pretensions.
I loved the opening chapter that sort of anchors (in my view) the whole book. It is about Leonard Allen’s father’s book room. I identified with it on so many levels, books tell the story of my own life. My dad had neither book room nor desk. He was/is a mechanic but he has lots of books. His books are stacked up in the corner. Rather than sitting at a desk, I remember seeing dad sitting on the floor leaning against the couch encircled by Halley’s Bible Handbook; Unger’s; George DeHoff; Sound Doctrine (R. L. Whiteside/C. R. Nichol); Leroy Brownlow’s Why I’m a Member of the Church of Christ; Thompson Chain Reference Bible; Strong’s Concordance; Adam Clarke’s Commentaries; various Homer Hailey works; occasionally some old red College Press Restoration Library reprints … oh and some Chilton’s manuals. I, too, picked up more than one and decided to read it.
But there was mystery in Allen’s father’s book room. As Leonard Allen tells it, the rest of his life has been coming to terms with not only those books in the book room but the man/men who sat inside it. And it is the journey, not just the beginning, that shapes us into who we are.
On the journey we discover something called “Tiger’s Milk” whose mere description committed me to never having any. That was worse than growing up with no rock and roll. Perhaps growing up with Tiger’s Milk is why, amazingly, Allen made it through graduate school without coffee. We are happy to report though that Leonard Allen has since embraced the ways of the Dark Roast.
One of the true delights in The Bookroom is looming figure of Holly Allen. Holly’s “song” sung at the Allen’s wedding is truly a gift of grace (p.85). I confess that I was moved deeply within.
On the other hand, one of the saddest parts of the journey is following Leonard as he goes to graduate school seeking wisdom for understanding the past. Did his father know of any of his son’s struggles, his efforts to understand his walk with God, is he even aware (did he read many of the books, articles, etc). And his father passed away. But it is at this very time the Allen’s have their own son. This too was part of the mystery of grace, perhaps the grace of lament as Allen shares this part of the story.
We sit in on Allen becoming a professor. We walk through a valley of the shadow of death as things enter into a season of disorientation. Leaving teaching and becoming a publisher (and discovering the joy of coffee shops). All this led to my favorite part of the book “Retrievals.” The chapter on “The Quality of Mercy” is worth the book. Near the end of the journey we fine a letter written by a Leonard Allen to his long-deceased father that is a different Leonard Allen at the time of his father’s death. This Allen gives us hope that our journey can enable us to see beauty where we did not know any existed and to recognize that we share in our fathers’ failings.
My own journey, perhaps it is because we are in the same religious family, often has mirrored Leonard Allen’s. I, too, have found it necessary to remember simply to understand. And I, too, I pray to God, have discovered the beauty of mercy – being me I would say Hesed – that desperately need.
I highly recommend The Bookroom it is a wonderful memoir. If you are like me, it will provoke you to look at your own journey with the Spirit on the way. One thing that kept coming to my mind as I read The Bookroom (and if you know me it will come as no surprise) was there is a Psalm for that.
It is available on Amazon. (I make not money from this review or recommendation). You can get it HERE.
