Mark loves his parents and wants to please them but is ultimately unable to resist the attractions of the world. In fact, he increasingly feels that being "in and of the world" is what makes him happy. He moves from talking his mom into allowing him to buy a relatively harmless Glen Campbell album for show and tell at school to having a huge collection of rock music and going to concerts. He alternates between guilt and spiritual re-dedication at summer church camp and sex with his girlfriend and getting drunk at parties.
The Evangelical backdrop to this story gives it its unique flavor. Obviously coming of age stories are nothing new but Anderson's unique voice comes from his place in the evangelical culture and his eventual antagonism to it. His reflections are almost sociological. He tries to look back and understand what made these people tick, what was driving their actions and feelings, and how he reacted and interacted with them. Why did he end up where he did?
I will admit that I found the story interesting yet frustrating. Perhaps this is because I grew up in a similar environment and experienced many of the same tensions but came to a different conclusion spiritually (if not always behaviorally). Still, I believe that the writing is strong enough and the story universal enough to be attractive to people no matter what their background. As I noted above, the story has sociological value because its insight into the people, issues, and ideas of the period. It is a sort of literary version of history from the ground up.
The weakness, in my mind, is its lack of strong conclusions. Anderson does a good job of describing the emotions he felt and their impact on his life but offers little in the way of conclusions. He rejected the faith of his parents but seems not to have replaced it with anything. He feels comfortable pointing out the hypocrisy and rudeness of fundamentalism but fails to explain the ugly debauchery and violence often connected to rock and roll. In other words, he really doesn't offer any criteria for judging what is right and wrong, good or bad, ugly or beautiful except his own emotions. The story descibes his changing actions and his feelings but not any real coherant decision making process.
Article comments
1 - kevin
Good review overall, though I'd point out that the lack of a conclusion really summarizes where Mark appears to be at. He's embraced a complex and confusing faith that doesn't give him a lot of solid ground. He believes in God's unconditional love, but he's not sure about much else. So when it comes to giving a lesson to walk away with, there's not much Mark can give.
While that doesn't make for a great ending of a book, it's at least consistent.