Let me start by saying I would not recommend this book to anyone. I could see how some people would like it: women who have a bit of depression and self-loathing; who are maybe Christians but don't really think the church and Christian literature, including the Bible, have much to say to them; maybe others who feel stuck being Christians and who enjoy griping about the world over coffee or wine.
I can't really understand why someone would publish this. Lamott has written several books, and I guess they sell or the publisher wouldn't waste the ink and paper, but this was grueling. I have seen references to her work by some Christian writers, but those writers are usually also in that category of "disgruntled with the state of things, and determined to remain so." They, and Lamott, would probably defend themselves by saying they are following the prophetic tradition. Old Testament prophets were, after all, usually disgruntled about something or other. But the O.T. prophets had something going for them: they spoke the truth of God, with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Lamott usually speaks the truth of her hippie, drug culture roots, with the inspiration of some mystic poets.
OK, maybe that's too harsh. She tells some good stories. Some even made me smile. She is refreshingly honest. Too often, memoirs or devotional books you might pick up at a Christian book store sugarcoat life, and when they talk about struggles they focus on the inevitable happy ending. Not Lamott. She lays it all out, and there is something therapeutic in hearing from someone who's been through struggles as well. I just don't know that we can learn much from her struggles and certainly I don't learn much about living the Christian life.
Aside from the lack of biblical, Christian theology, Lamott also makes her political and social liberalism very clear. Once, when invited to a panel at a liberal Catholic meeting (which she says she didn't know was Catholic at the time), she defended a woman's right to kill her own unborn baby. "I said that a woman's right to choose was nobody else's g-d business." (She doesn't abbreviate. She has a potty mouth.) She actually says that "reproductive rights for all women" are a "crucial part" of the message of "the sacredness of each human life." Unborn humans need not apply.
Besides that, anything that I may have gleaned in terms of edification or inspiration was eclipsed by her occasional uninformed, ridiculous jabs at conservatives. Here are some examples:
"Everyone is loved and chosen, even Dick Cheney, even Saddam Hussein." OK, I can see objecting to Cheney's policies, but comparing him to a despot who committed genocide against his own people?? Whatever.
"Whenever I want to binge or diet, it means that there is some part of me that is deeply afraid. . . . I had been worried sick about Bush for five years now." Get a grip.
"I don't hate anyone right now, not even George W. Bush. . . . While I still oppose every decision he makes and am appalled at his general level of malfunction, I no longer want to hurt him." She describes the lengths she went to to "unhate Bush." Looks like she takes Bush's presidency much too seriously. You get the feeling that if George W. Bush found a home for every homeless person in America, raised everyone in poverty to middle class, made peace with every country in the Middle East, and gave Lamott a pedicure, she'd still see him as the devil.
On abortion again: "President Bush . . . signed legislation limiting abortion rights, surrounded by nine self-righteous white married males, who had forced God knows how many girlfriends into doing God knows what." I think this would be called projection. Just because her boyfriends may have forced her to do God knows what doesn't mean all men force all their girlfriends the same way.
"George W. Bush and John Ashcroft had tried for years to create a country the East German state could only dream about."
"George Bush's decisions and movements will take a thousand years to recover from, because his people have done such major damage everywhere."
And these political liberals say that Rush Limbaugh makes baseless criticisms of the left. Grace (Eventually) is not a political book, and certainly not a treatise on policy, but these screeching remarks distract from any small amount of redeeming value that can be found here. Don't bother.
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