Rating: 
Summary: Remarkably Honest
Review: A must read! Lee Martin takes a deeply honest look into who is, where he has come from and how that will shape his identity. Never have I come away from a piece of literature and felt so moved. Martin's memoir has a sort of constant rhythm that propels you to take the journey with him into another time. He avoids with great dignity the "poor me" syndrome, and takes the time to reflect with honesty and integrity the struggles of life. While 1960s life on a farm in the midwest might seem a nostalgic and peaceful setting, Martin brings to life the kind of violence and true grit of living and emotion that takes place in this typically idealized setting. A pleasure to read in that you come away feeling that you've learned as much as about your own life as you have the author's.
Rating:
Summary: Remarkably Honest
Review: A must read! Lee Martin takes a deeply honest look into who is, where he has come from and how that will shape his identity. Never have I come away from a piece of literature and felt so moved. Martin's memoir has a sort of constant rhythm that propels you to take the journey with him into another time. He avoids with great dignity the "poor me" syndrome, and takes the time to reflect with honesty and integrity the struggles of life. While 1960s life on a farm in the midwest might seem a nostalgic and peaceful setting, Martin brings to life the kind of violence and true grit of living and emotion that takes place in this typically idealized setting. A pleasure to read in that you come away feeling that you've learned as much as about your own life as you have the author's.
Rating:
Summary: Moving Memoir
Review: Do you have fond memories of the summers of your youth? Lee Martin does. Do you remember the sometimes silly, fun times with family and friends during your youth? Lee Martin does. Do you remember the onset of rebellion and its attendant problems? Lee Martin does. Do you remember your father beating you repeatedly with a belt and inflicting both physical and mental abuse? Lee Martin does. Have you gone to the extraordinary step of describing your most private family secrets to the world? Lee Martin does. This memoir is an elegant story about growing up on a small farm in southern Illinois with a submissive, meek schoolteacher mother and a violent, abusive father that lost both hands in a farming accident. The accident left his father a frustrated, bitter, violent man that robbed Martin of the compassion and love he desperately needed. This story of the struggle between a father and his adolescent son is at times painful, complex, affectionate, violent and heartbreaking. But it is also a wonderful story of redemption, love, inspiration and forgiveness that make it special among the seemingly hundreds of memoirs being published today. Martin has written a very personal story in a clear, compassionate way that will leave the reader thinking about this book for a long time. It is not a sentimental book. It is a compassionate, powerful book about the conflicts between a father and his son and the ultimate resolution of their rivalries.It is safe to say that virtually all children have experienced hardships while growing up. Some more so than others. The difference is that Martin has written his experiences down for the entire world to see. It is not always a pretty sight but his ultimate resolution is a story the entire world needs to hear. It should be noted that while this memoir is about the complex relationship between a father and son there is an underlying theme of the contributions made by his mother that ultimately allowed Martin to find peace and tranquillity in his life. His descriptions of the strenght and resolve of his mother are touching and unforgettable. While reading this book I was reminded of a book of poetry titled "There Are Men Too Gentle To Live Among Wolves." I suspect Lee Martin may be such a man. I wish I could have resolved my differences with my father, as did Martin. He is a special writer and person. When you look back on trying times in your childhood can you say,"In my memory, it was always summer?" Lee Martin does.
Rating:
Summary: Martin's poetics: Vulnerability, Integrity, and Mystery
Review: I do not recall ever experiencing a writer's vulnerability as much as in *From Our House* (and also in Martin's short story collection *The Least You Need to Know*--which reminds me, I think the world is due for a new collection of Martin short stories!) In general, Martin's characters never seem to live up to their own expectations of themselves, and the older, more mature narrators tend to confront these betrayals of self and loved ones directly and without making excuses for scarring moral lapses. As a reader, Martin's texts promoted my own self-evaluations that focus on times life that I had preferred to remember in comfortably hazy, impressionistic terms rather than detailed ones. Martin is at times extremely hard on himself in the memoir (and on his short story protagonists), but the overall effect is a deeper understanding of human frailty and vulnerability than exists in most literature.Memoirs seem to be a tricky business, and people forget that we live by fictions (one of my favorite quotes: "The story of your life is not your life. Its your story."--J. Barth). This is how we cope with life, with narratives that explain, often with artificial causation, how things came to be and why. One of the beauties of Martin's memoir is his ability to address this issue, as he writes, and explores these wounds and mysteries.
Rating:
Summary: Fathers and Sons
Review: I read it, and I liked it. However, I would not give it more than three stars simply because I doesn't merit a four or five star rating. Think about when you rate a hotel, restaurant, movie, or play, you rate these things based on your enjoyment/entertainment for what it costs. This is the same way I rated this book. It was good, but not the absolute, hands-down best out there. From looking at the other reviews, it seems that most of the reviewers are the author's friends or neighbors(look how many are from Texas), hence the five star ratings. Be honest. It is a good read, but don't be swayed by the pretentious few.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best
Review: If you enjoy regional writing and memoirs you will love this book. Martin's writing style is personal and intense but not overdone. Couldn't put it down!
Rating:
Summary: An Example of the Grace of Memoir
Review: Lee Martin is a writer who cares greatly about exploring the intricacies of human nature and our relationships with others. He gives his readers a compelling story of his struggling relationship with his family as well as his own self. I, too, am a former student of Martin's and am sorry to see that another reviewer misunderstands and misrepresents Martin's true vision, not only as a writer, but as a teacher. If you want to experience a master writer who brings the complexity of emotions and actions of a family trying to live in the sometimes lovely and sometimes harsh space they've created, then read this book.
Rating:
Summary: A Courageous Book
Review: Lee Martin's memoir "From Our House" is more than an unsettling portrayal of a unique American childhood or the clash of generational values that were the seeds of the Sixties. It aims beyond a painful depiction of how rebellion and cruelty, even betrayal, can be bound up and contained within the love of a family. In fact, at its most daring, it is a suggestion of the very nature of forgiveness: that even as an offense and heartbreak continues, the indictment is never made and final judgement, despite so much bitterness, never rendered. It suggests something about the human spirit very hard to believe and by the end of the book, impossible to deny. Martin uses a strong grace to tell us of the accident that takes his father's hands on the farm. "I'm free to imagine that day anyway I'd like: a brilliant sun glinting off the picker, the dry leaves of the cornstalks scraping together in the wind; or perhaps it was overcast, the sky dark with the threat of rain, and perhaps the wind was cold on my father's face." It happens when Martin is a baby, this event that will shake his family so powerfully, releasing his father's terrible anger and shame, and his own struggle to understand, gain approval and finally forgive. Later in the book he imagines being present at the accident, older in this dream, and able to warn his father to turn off the tractor before manipulating the picker. He dreams of the power to prevent the accident that leaves the elder Martin with steel hooks to drive his car, hold a cup of coffee or touch his wife and son. Remarkably, at the conclusion, we're not sure Martin would want to change the past, or that we would have him do so. "From Our House" hangs in the heart and mind's eye, this image of what we can be, drawn with the sharp lines of what we are. I read the book a second time because it is good news and true, true because it never cowers at our inhumanity. Martin's father and he share a rare moment of understanding on the morning of his grandmother's funeral. Coaxing his reluctant boy into preparing for the morning, his father lays beside him on the bed. "Such a strange day," he says. "You'd hardly think it was meant for you." The same can be said of this book, a stunning and beautiful declaration of everything we are.
Rating:
Summary: A Courageous Book
Review: Lee Martin's memoir "From Our House" is more than an unsettling portrayal of a unique American childhood or the clash of generational values that were the seeds of the Sixties. It aims beyond a painful depiction of how rebellion and cruelty, even betrayal, can be bound up and contained within the love of a family. In fact, at its most daring, it is a suggestion of the very nature of forgiveness: that even as an offense and heartbreak continues, the indictment is never made and final judgement, despite so much bitterness, never rendered. It suggests something about the human spirit very hard to believe and by the end of the book, impossible to deny. Martin uses a strong grace to tell us of the accident that takes his father's hands on the farm. "I'm free to imagine that day anyway I'd like: a brilliant sun glinting off the picker, the dry leaves of the cornstalks scraping together in the wind; or perhaps it was overcast, the sky dark with the threat of rain, and perhaps the wind was cold on my father's face." It happens when Martin is a baby, this event that will shake his family so powerfully, releasing his father's terrible anger and shame, and his own struggle to understand, gain approval and finally forgive. Later in the book he imagines being present at the accident, older in this dream, and able to warn his father to turn off the tractor before manipulating the picker. He dreams of the power to prevent the accident that leaves the elder Martin with steel hooks to drive his car, hold a cup of coffee or touch his wife and son. Remarkably, at the conclusion, we're not sure Martin would want to change the past, or that we would have him do so. "From Our House" hangs in the heart and mind's eye, this image of what we can be, drawn with the sharp lines of what we are. I read the book a second time because it is good news and true, true because it never cowers at our inhumanity. Martin's father and he share a rare moment of understanding on the morning of his grandmother's funeral. Coaxing his reluctant boy into preparing for the morning, his father lays beside him on the bed. "Such a strange day," he says. "You'd hardly think it was meant for you." The same can be said of this book, a stunning and beautiful declaration of everything we are.
Rating:
Summary: Fathers and Sons
Review: This is a DYNAMITE memoir. It explores the complex relationship between fathers and sons, the way even our best intentions can lead to violence, wounds both physical and spiritual, and, in the face of all of that, the improbable, redemptive quality of love. The writing here is beautiful. After reading this book, I came to see my own father differently--in a way that hadn't presented itself to me before. For me, that's what good writing does, it twists our lives around and shows them to us in a way we hadn't thought to see them. Lee Martin's memoir does just that. It is Highly recommended.
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