More from John Lansingh Bennett
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Laurie Tucker’s What Odd Things I Thank You For is a triumph—a beautifully crafted account of a harrowing journey. At this point the cliché would be “I laughed; I cried.” The truth of the matter is that I did, indeed, do both. . .repeatedly. Like her life, this book is a hard-won triumph, one I am deeply grateful to have been vouchsafed. I carry Laurie’s story in my heart, now and forever. Wry laughter interspersed with abject horror and bathed in radiance—to have read Laurie Tucker’s What Odd Things I Thank You For is to have been initiated, to have become wiser, more spiritual. I would not wish Ms. Tucker’s childhood on any soul I can imagine, yet I stand humbled to see what she’s made of those beginnings. What a privilege to have been taken on this journey! Each time I read this work I marvel. How can someone tell a tale this horrific with Tucker’s gentleness and poise? Why hasn’t this woman run screaming into the abyss? Actually, she has gone into the abyss. The first time, as a youngster, she was seduced into it by her grandfather. He took her back hundreds of times from preschool through high school. Her parents were complicit. Her father, an elder in the church, grew excited by his father’s depravity. If there is such a thing as evil incarnate, Tucker’s childhood carries its grimy prints. If there is such a thing as grace incarnate, it inhabits these pages. Laurie Tucker’s What Odd Things I Thank You For moves me. I had never quite known, viscerally, what evil was until I read this work. To this day I have trouble fathoming how she repressed what had been done to her, how she had the courage to dredge it all up, how she had the balls to face it down, . . . and how she manages to record her story with a love suffused with righteous anger. If there is such a thing as beatific vision, it is incarnate in Laurie Tucker’s ultimately triumphant story. Read it. You will grow, . . . and you will marvel alongside me. |