Buy George Jensen

Review by Craig A. Meyer:

Jensen's book is so much more than a memoir of or about an alcoholic family. After reading it I found myself wanting to purchase copies for my entire family, because like Jensen's, my family has some problems too. I champion Jensen's efforts to delve deeper into his family history, and not to point fingers, but rather to understand the circumstances, the real history (not the contrived one we tell ourselves), and to contemplate how each family member affects the others.

At times funny and times teary eyed, Jensen writes with passion about the reality--good and bad--of his family. His memory is balanced and fair. In what appears to be a potentially bitter son attacking his father, we quickly find a son struggling with his own feelings, his brother's feelings, and even his mother's feelings, but most importantly, those of his deceased father. This is a tale of love. A love that travels across time and space and is carried to Jensen's own sons, which is one of the most touching endings I'll wager anyone will ever read.

I'm not ashamed to say my eyes were wet on more than one occasion--I felt myself a kindred to Jensen's story, his life. Yet, I'm also not ashamed that I laughed out loud many more times--Jensen does tell a wonderful story, but a real story it is.

Again, beyond mere memoir, Jensen is a detective who searches out the truth of his father, his mother, his brother, and even himself.

Jensen has a deep love for his family that we all must share with our own families. Yet, I also suspect Jensen is paying his alcoholic father's love forward, not just to his sons, but to every reader. So read and love.

Review by James S. Baumlin:

Jensen's Some of the Words Are Theirs has a power that few memoirs can claim: it tells the truth about family alcoholism without blaming or self-pity. It's genuinely funny in places, exciting in others (the Word War II sequences especially), meditative in others still, and always engaging. I remember being in a public lecture when Dr. Jensen read from his book. What amazed was the number of audience members who afterwards said, in effect, "That's my life, my family you just described." I guess family alcoholism has its typical trajectories; Jensen has recorded his with great honesty and tenderness at the same time. I've read the book twice now, and enjoyed it more the second time. The letter that he wrote to his children describing his own father's naval experiences at Pearl Harbor (and other great battles of the Pacific Campaign) deserves to be anthologized: we should all remember to pass along the stories of our parents, even when those stories turn tragic. Otherwise, we disappear from the face of the earth.