A Storyteller’s Anthology: 26 Inspiring Character Portraits For Our Time, by Douglas Feavel

[Note: This book has been provided free of charge by Aneko Press in exchange for an honest review.]

In the lengthy introductory material to this collection of sometimes familiar tales, the author states that in the contemporary climate of political correctness, which the author bends to at least slightly in many of these stories by writing in a secular fashion, even if the overall book makes it clear that the author is strongly conservative and self-avowedly Christian in his approach, the author states that it is common for those of the leftist persuasion to label conservative thinkers as provincial and curmudgeonly. No one giving this book a fair read would have any reason to think of the author as provincial in any fashion, as the stories are quite broad in their approach, but at the same time the author does appear rather curmudgeonly in many of the stories, sounding like a cranky old man telling youngsters to get off his lawn while he loads his shotgun. The fact that the author speaks in rather provocative and politically coded language about givers and takers and shows considerable hostility to intellect and book knowledge, despite having engaged in the intellectual task of writing a book of stories with the express goal of moral education signifies that sometimes the author’s rhetoric is at odds with practical concerns of recognizing his own intellectual aspirations as well as understanding the need to avoid making unnecessary enemies, a quality he praises in able politicians like Lincoln and Reagan. The materials of this book suggest that the author is a deep student of character and has a firm command of his storytelling abilities, but that sometimes he misses the mark in showing a grasp of the street smarts in avoiding unnecessary offense that he supports.

In terms of its contents, the book consists of two parts. The first part, containing almost 60 pages in the introduction and an epilogue of about 20 more pages, consists of the author’s lamentation about the decline of character, the removal of stories about divine providence from common currency, and the failure of contemporary schools to educate America’s youth in the business of making sound moral choices, and setting the criteria that the author uses for determining if a story is worth sharing: moral character, nonfictional nature, ability to be shared to a wide age audience, appropriateness for oral retelling, clear moral lesson or “sticky points,” presence of a clear hero in the story. These criteria are admittedly subjective, but they make for worthwhile tales that provide a somewhat vicarious mentoring for readers. The other 250 pages or so of the book consists of 26 stories, some of them parables but most of them biographical sketches, of a wide mixture of worthy and heroic people. Some of the mare particularly famous: Jesus Christ, George Washington, and Ronald Reagan. Some of them are not as obscure as the author seems to think: Joseph Carey Merrick, better known as the Elephant Man, Phoebe Ann Mosey, better known as Annie Oakley, noted missionary Russell Stendal [1], and Rose Villand, best known for her work in preserving Europe’s artistic legacy which has appeared in films like Monuments Men. Many of the stories, whether of well-known people or more obscure ones, show resilient people who have a strong faith in God, a willingness to forgive others of their debts and try to pay their own, a dislike of too much attention, and the courage and tenacity to overcome crippling deficits as a result of illness, deformity, injury, poverty, and abuse, without acting as if the world owed them anything regardless of how they had suffered. The author’s political points are a bit heavy-handed, but the stories hardly need such an approach, as subtlety would have served just as well without causing offense to readers bothered by the author’s often strident tone.

That said, despite the fact that the author has a strident tone, and is likely to be misinterpreted by more unfriendly readers, his comments when taken as a whole show him to be far broader in his conception of morality and character than is often appreciated. Often, conservative writers are accused of the tendency of praising personal morality while ignoring social morality, but Feavel pointedly condemns the racism of Nazi Germany, the Antebellum and unreconstructed American South, and contemporary Islam, all suitable targets for a writer concerned with social injustice and immorality on a massive and ugly scale. In casting a great deal of well-placed blame on figures like Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson for supporting an evil regime while claiming to be Christian gentlemen, the author points out that the moral character of a leader is not limited to personal morality, but also the justice of one’s causes and the regimes one supports with one’s talents and abilities. Clearly Lee and Jackson, and many others, chose wrongly, and this view of morality on the societal scale demonstrates that the author is sensitive to the larger political implications of our decisions, and has a robust if sometimes too dualistic viewpoint of good and evil on both the personal and the wider scale. This is a worthwhile book full of interesting stories, and the author is unstinting in giving credit where it is due in terms of where he encountered these stories, which will give the reader many more books to read to gather details that the author did not include in order to keep this book at a reasonable size. The author deserves considerable praise for his desire to write about those who have often been unjustly ignored, and the stories, even if sometimes a bit heavy-handed in his storytelling approach, will merit reading and retelling for a hopefully wide and appreciative audience.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/book-review-the-hidden-agenda/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/03/08/book-review-gods-plan-for-spiritual-battle/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/04/19/book-review-what-about-the-church/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/10/20/book-review-queen-esther-and-the-ring-of-power/