Rating: 
Summary: Finest Writing I've Seen In A Long Time
Review: As an avid reader and freelance writer, I am sometimes nit-picky about unusual books, but this book is even better for its quirks. Author Matthew Chapman is a searcher who just happens to be the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin. While doing research for a book on the Scopes Monkey Trials, he makes some fascinating contacts with real people from the south and his observations ring uncannily- and surprisingly- true to this life-long southerner. His personal confessions are sometimes painfully frank, but clearly genuine. Don't miss this fine, fine book.
Rating:
Summary: A Marvel of a Memoir
Review: At first glance, this is a messed-up book about a messed-up person. Oh yes, and he intends to tell us about the Scopes-Monkey Trial. He does. He also tells us about his life and about the lives of his ancestors, descendants of the one and only Charles Darwin. The form is unusual, but it works, works far better than if Chapman had tried to write a book on any one topic. With his odd form, Chapman contextualizes Dayton, Tennessee, his reactions to it, his life, his family history and the evolution debate all with respect to one another. Though the details get as embarrassing as Rousseau (or today's average tell-all), Chapman is above all a modern version of Montaigne, telling us about something very different from himself - the Scopes-Monkey Trial - but telling us about himself in the process. (For those who don't like Montaigne, the quirks are there but this is lighter reading.) A marvelous book.
Rating:
Summary: A Marvel of a Memoir
Review: At first glance, this is a messed-up book about a messed-up person. Oh yes, and he intends to tell us about the Scopes-Monkey Trial. He does. He also tells us about his life and about the lives of his ancestors, descendants of the one and only Charles Darwin. The form is unusual, but it works, works far better than if Chapman had tried to write a book on any one topic. With his odd form, Chapman contextualizes Dayton, Tennessee, his reactions to it, his life, his family history and the evolution debate all with respect to one another. Though the details get as embarrassing as Rousseau (or today's average tell-all), Chapman is above all a modern version of Montaigne, telling us about something very different from himself - the Scopes-Monkey Trial - but telling us about himself in the process. (For those who don't like Montaigne, the quirks are there but this is lighter reading.) A marvelous book.
Rating:
Summary: Quirky, oddly compelling
Review: Chapman does an excellent job of inexplicably drawing together two radically different worlds, his middle-class English childhood in the 1950's and '60's and present-day Dayton, Tennessee. He is able to write about the American South without being either snide or condescending, something native American writers are constitutionally incapable of doing.... Chapman is a refreshing change of pace from these apparatchiks, who actually listens to and learns something from some fundamentalist Christians (I am not one). Chapman is a fluent, graceful writer and never lets the reader's interest flag. I almost deducted half a star for his knee-jerk anti-capitalism (this from a man who makes a million dollars a year!) and occasional descent into navel-gazing, but the book transcends those minor lapses. I found this particularly interesting because my father was British and I grew up in part in England, and because I live, by choice, in the South not 100 miles from Dayton, so this book explored my past and my present environment of choice. Even if you don't share this odd background, you will enjoy this well-written offbeat memoir/non-fiction report.
Rating:
Summary: Quirky, oddly compelling
Review: Chapman does an excellent job of inexplicably drawing together two radically different worlds, his middle-class English childhood in the 1950's and '60's and present-day Dayton, Tennessee. He is able to write about the American South without being either snide or condescending, something native American writers are constitutionally incapable of doing.... Chapman is a refreshing change of pace from these apparatchiks, who actually listens to and learns something from some fundamentalist Christians (I am not one). Chapman is a fluent, graceful writer and never lets the reader's interest flag. I almost deducted half a star for his knee-jerk anti-capitalism (this from a man who makes a million dollars a year!) and occasional descent into navel-gazing, but the book transcends those minor lapses. I found this particularly interesting because my father was British and I grew up in part in England, and because I live, by choice, in the South not 100 miles from Dayton, so this book explored my past and my present environment of choice. Even if you don't share this odd background, you will enjoy this well-written offbeat memoir/non-fiction report.
Rating:
Summary: To hell and back in a monkey suit.
Review: Full of doubts, fears and inexplicable successes as a not executed screen writer (Stanley Kubrick once said: if every studio in Hollywood turns down a script, it doesn't mean it is a work of genius, yet it is a very sure start.), Matthew Chapman, Darwin's great great grandson, decides to write a book.
Using the reenactment of the famous Scopes trial of 1925, where his great great grandfather's teaching are opposed by the law in Dayton Tennessee, ostensibly to find out what, if anything has changed in seventy five years, Chapman sets out to write one book, but luckily for the reader, comes up with a surprisingly fresh and different genre of memoir, accidental as the subtitle reads, yes, but warm, vibrant with and interspersed with questions that lead to more and deeper questions..
He meets a lot of real people down south, all are first introduced as iconic satirical prototypes, but Chapman's intimate curiosity strips the veneer and exposes likable human beings, troubled by qualms yet protected by the bliss of faith; some through ignorance, some through learned resignation.
Than, into this murky lake of fear and backbone America, Chapman starts launching pebbles, and his own life story comes fuzzily into focus: a brilliant enthusiastic and loving father, shaded by his hectic life and by a gap of misunderstanding with his wife, Matthew's mother who is a dazzling, witty woman, but one who fails through a repeated line of episodes to come to grips with growing up, until she drowns herself in a sea of alcohol and unquenched anxieties. Chapman's attempt at redemption through God, through bumming, through love, sex, writing, are all confidentially brought under the microscope, dissected analytically, reduced to a little more than yester-dust and than put back together.
Chapman questions his life, his fears, his angst, his inability for happiness, his touch and go existence from Millionaire to pauper and back in one fast go, and his constant fear of being found out.
Chapman uses the real characters he encounters, together with the historical protagonists of the 'Monkey Trial' of seventy five years ago, as pieces of a mirror, that twist back his reflection, and helps explore another dark place in his persona.
A powerful and sincere piece of writing, as good as any I've read lately, and better than most.
You care about all the characters, the bit players as well as the semi-hero, as they are al alive, human and vulnerable.
A refreshing and pleasantly surprising rendezvous.
Rating:
Summary: A Fortunate "Accident"
Review: I bought this book on vacation. I'm a person that frequently judges books by their covers and this one looked interesting. If it weren't good, it would be cute on my bookselves later. I read it in about 5 large chunks spread out over 3 days. Got a little preoccupied by it to be quite honest. It drew me right in.I've reccommended it since to friends who have all thanked me. It has a lot going for it: history, personality, humor, honesty, insight. Memoirs are hit or miss, but Matthew Chapman is a genuinely intruiging person. What is different about this memoir is that it wasn't intended to be one. The author realized ultimately though, that his own story is the one that should be told. He wrote it with a sense of humor, candidness, perspective, and without being self-indulgent. It's a great, well-written story.
Rating:
Summary: A Fortunate "Accident"
Review: I bought this book on vacation. I'm a person that frequently judges books by their covers and this one looked interesting. If it weren't good, it would be cute on my bookselves later. I read it in about 5 large chunks spread out over 3 days. Got a little preoccupied by it to be quite honest. It drew me right in. I've reccommended it since to friends who have all thanked me. It has a lot going for it: history, personality, humor, honesty, insight. Memoirs are hit or miss, but Matthew Chapman is a genuinely intruiging person. What is different about this memoir is that it wasn't intended to be one. The author realized ultimately though, that his own story is the one that should be told. He wrote it with a sense of humor, candidness, perspective, and without being self-indulgent. It's a great, well-written story.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I've ever read!
Review: I came across this book by accident while browsing Amazon. It is one of the best books I have ever read! As an Atheist myself, I found it right on the money. Chapman revealed the "spirituality" of an Atheist extremely well. Some might find his out takes from his life (that were woven in the memoir) a bit distracting, a "why is he telling us this?" kind of thing but I found it a good side dish to the main idea and at times extremely funny. I think anyone, even some one of faith would find this book interesting. It shows life from a point of view not often expressed. I feel that Chapman left nothing uncovered and admire him for revealing his truths.
Rating: 
Summary: A very funny, insightful book but...
Review: I found myself laughing and alternately, pondering, Chapman's excellent book, Trials of the Monkey. I also found myself disliking the author very much. To sum it up, he's a whiny ahole but he's amusing. If you can forgive his wallowing in self-pity, you'll enjoy the book. Fortunately, the Scopes Trial and Chapman's writing skills manage to overshadow his woe-is-me attitude.
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