The Extraordinary Life Of Sam Hell

YA fiction 

     Do you ever get a book as a gift from someone you love that you never would have chosen for yourself?  You're not sure you'll get around to actually reading it.  But you can't just pass it on.  You keep it just in case the right time comes to at least skim it...

     And when that time comes you discover that you really like it.

     Robert Dugoni's The Extraordinary Life Of Sam Hell was such a book for me.  I'd run out of interlibrary loans and was browsing through my emergency stack consisting of gifts and thrift shop/yard sale acquisitions.  Initially it triggered a lot of my biases:  1) adult fiction 2) by a male author featuring 3) a male protagonist set in 4) the past and 5) involving old time Catholicism.  But after I got through the first few chapters I was committed to finishing it...

     ...and it takes a hell of a book to overcome that many biases.

     "My mother called it 'God's will.'  At those moments in my life when things did not go as I had hoped or planned, and there were many, she would say, 'It's God's will, Samuel.'  This was hardly comforting to a six-year-old boy, even one 'blessed' with a healthier dose of perspective than most children at that age."

     Sam had been born with ocular albinism, a condition that gave him red rather than say brown or blue eyes.  His mom insisted that it was a sign that he was special, destined for an extraordinary future.

     When Sam starts Catholic school, however, a school his mom had to fight to get him admitted to, his classmates see his red eyes as a sign of something much different.  His classmates call him Devil 😈 Boy and alter the spelling of his actual last name, Hill.  He has to put up with a lot of bullying and ostracism.  The only kids who become his friends are each different in a unique way.  Ernie is Black.  Mickie is outspoken questioning of all those in authority take for granted.

     Just as Sam graduates from high schoolhis pharmacist father, a hard working man and devoted dad, suffers a massive stroke.  He doesn't die.  In fact he does recovery some functions.  But he never is able to return to his home, being transferred to a long term care facility, his modest retirement plans for traveling with his beloved wife becoming out of reach.  

     And then a bully from Sam's past, a child abuser mirroring the abuse he suffered at his own father's hands, takes down his ex wife in a murder-suicide.

     Sam doesn't believe his mother's rosary praying, God's will acceptance brand of Catholicism.  But he still wants to believe in something.

     Many of us brought up in strictly religious households, have faith crises when tragedy flies in the face of what we've been taught.  When Harriet became severely and irreversibly brain damaged my image of an all powerful, all loving God was seriously shaken.  If he'd allowed something so bad to happen to an innocent little kid...  The Extraordinary Life Of Sam Hell is a most excellent read for anyone who has experienced a similar faith crisis.

On a purrrsonal note, my older daughter, Amber, just called me with most excellent news.  A short story she wrote about a haunted doll has been accepted for publication in an anthology that will come out this fall.  I'm very impressed.  She's really making it as a writer.  (Jules)

Yay, Amber!  Way to be awesome!  (Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to our Amber!

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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