Review: Magnifying history and tradition and filial love
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 15, 2013
Philip Jude McQuillan has a life spread around like a story – in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Costa Rica and back to Michigan – but he has offered us, his readers, a reminder that memoires restored are our most precious possessions. His writing style is to the point, free of gratuitous phrasing, and to give an example of how her communicates, the following is form his preface to this glowing little book: ‘These pages are about my father, not about my grandfather’s uncle. I know absolutely nothing about my grandfather’s uncle. I can say with almost total certainty that no one alive today knows anything about him either. Is that such a terrible thing? Maybe, maybe not. I do know that it would be a great personal tragedy of my father’s memory were to pass into nothingness of total anonymity just like my grandfather’s uncle(s). If I can help it, I am not going to let that happen to my father.’McQuillan encourages us all to follow his lead and write in a journal the memories of our loved ones, a very fine idea in this chaotic world to emails, twitters, facebook chatter etc. Pause and read this book in moments when you are able to appreciate the value of memories - especially the kind of love McQuillan retains about his father who died at the age of 98, such as his sense of humor, his vocabulary, his inimitable choice of phrases and words, etc. Big Philip, as he was affectionately known sprinkled ordinary conversation with bits of poetry, Shakespeare, classical music, the great books. McQuillan shares his father’s choice phrases (he taught high school English literature yet never wrote), his little recipes, his night job as a radio announcer, his game board ‘crimes’, his philosophy of ‘Simplify, simplify’, his love for horse racing, and on and on.In this short book we get such a richly detailed portrait of Big Philip that we grow to love him almost as much as his biographer son. McQuillan places in bold font those words or phrases that even without the font change would remain memorable because of the author’s lucid style of writing. At books end, McQuillan encourages us to do as he has done – memorialize our parents, grandparents, lost friends – and with this book as a model, his idea is a most warmly engaging one. This reader would like to see more of the writings of Philip Jude McQuillan! He is good – or, better than good! Grady Harp, November 13