SISTER, SINNER

5 stars out of 5

For a variety of reasons - none of them religious - I've always been fascinated by the "Come let me wrap ye in the cloak of the Lord" televangelists who pretty much ruled the Sunday-morning airwaves back in my day - names like Rex Humbard, Ernest Angley and Dr. Robert Schuller. Watching them spit out their fire-and-brimstone messages, invite viewers to come to the altar to be "saved" (or healed) and, of course, make pleas for money was, if nothing else, always a hoot.

But years before their time was an evangelist who I'd call a trailblazer for a variety of reasons: Aimee Semple McPherson. Although her ministry was going strong on the radio when I was a youngster, I never heard her (she died in 1944, when I was but a toddler). But I certainly heard of her, if only that there was some kind of scandal involving her ministry; so when I got the chance to read the story of her life, I threw my arms to the sky and offered thanks (in this case, to the publisher, via NetGalley).

And what an interesting ministry - and life - she had. Plagued with scandal, intrigue, and, yes, love (at least for all things heavenly), her story just kept getting more intricate and involved as the pages flew by. Among the initial revelations are that she was married twice despite preaching so-called "old-time religion; she was 35 years old in 1926, when thousands flocked to her Angelus Temple (a.k.a. Million Dollar Temple) in California; her sudden disappearance, and presumed drowning in the ocean, most likely was faked and has never been fully resolved.

It's the parts before and after that disappearance, though, that are fascinating, at least to me - especially the complicated relationship between Aimee and her "stage mom," Minnie Kennedy, and her two children with first husband Robert Semple at age 17, Rolf and Roberta - the latter presumed to continue Aimee's ministry had those ocean waters actually claimed her life. 

Along her life's somewhat erratic journey, she became wildly popular on the born-again Christian circuit - being dubbed, mostly by her detractors, as the P.T. Barnum of Christianity. It is the "stuff" of that journey, of course, that fills the pages of this book - but also of course, I'll leave it up to other readers to find and enjoy them, hopefully as much as I did. Oh, and there's an extensive list of sources at the end as well.

Sister Sinner by Claire Hoffman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, April 2025); 384 pp.

OPPOSABLE THUMBS

5 stars

From 1975 to early 1999 - the period in which Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert did their wildly successful thumbs up or down thing on TV, our family of four was up and running, with our younger (and final) kid entering her seventh year. We went to the movies with some frequency - back then, a box of popcorn didn't cost as much as a new car - but we also spent many hours with our noses glued to the TV set in the living room (one of those big old cathode-ray sets, of course). We loved watching the sometimes volatile dynamics between the two movie critics, which often helped us decide whether or not to spend our hard-earned money at at the theater. So I looked forward to the enlightenment this book promised to bring.

And the author delivered; the writing was interesting even during parts that easily could have turned boring, and I learned much more about the complicated relationship between the two rival newspaper columnists as well as the evolution of their popular TV show from a behind-the-scenes perspective. Other chapters serve as biographies of their early and pre-TV lives.

Not surprisingly, much is made of the never-ending tension between the two, both personally and professionally; but in the end, it was what propelled the somewhat unwilling team to the stardom they enjoyed for 23 years until Siskel's death in early 1999. Ebert continued for a time until he, too, passed away. So what would they be doing if both were still alive today? "Whatever projects they did separately, Gene and Roger would have remained Siskel and Ebert as long as they lived: two individuals who were better at arguing about movies together than anyone else in history," the author posits. 

At the end of the book is a list of 25 films - amid hundreds of films they reviewed over their years together - that earned a thumbs-up from both critics (that in and of itself may be worth the price of admission). All in all, this is an informative, enjoyable book and I thank the publisher, via NetGalley, for the opportunity to read and review a pre-release copy.A thumbs-up from me!

Opposable Thumbs by Matt Singer (G.P. Putnam's Sons, October 2024); 352 pp.

THE GOOD NEIGHBOR: THE LIFE AND WORK OF FRED ROGERS

4 stars out of 5


Our two children, born nearly five years apart in the 1960s, were dedicated "Sesame Street" and "Electric Company" kids. But that was long enough ago that every once in a while they'd catch an episode or two of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" as well. And while I, too, tended to prefer the blinkin' lights, in-your-face constant action of those first two, I admit that the calmness and serenity that Fred Rogers brought to his show was very welcome. Whether or not it was our favorite, though, there's no denying the positive impact that Rogers and his show had on millions of children. For that reason alone, I was delighted to get my hands on a copy of this book.

Through interviews and tons of other records, the author does an outstanding job of pulling together an inside look not only at the development of the TV shows in which Rogers was involved (yes, there's more than one), but also of the man himself. I already knew he was from an hour or so across "my" Ohio border in Pennsylvania, for instance, but I didn't know he was an only child of very wealthy parents, nor that his trademark cardigan idea came because his mother knitted him a new one every year for decades. I was also impressed to learn that he earned a degree in music and has written something like 200 songs and, most surprisingly, 14 operas.
  
For the record, there's a substantial amount of information here about people who played instrumental roles in Rogers's life - sometimes more than I really cared to know - and there's a fair amount of repetition throughout the book. But overall, it's an interesting, well-laid-out portrait of a man who to me, at least, is an educational television icon. Thanks for the memories!   

The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King (Abrams Press, September 2018); 320 pp.