Some biographers seem so enamored with their subject they write like a paid publicist.
Others are so critical they appear to be engaged in a personal vendetta. By contrast, Bob Parrott gives us an authentic picture of theologian Albert Outler by reproducing extended passages from hundreds of letters, as well as quotations from other sources, all skillfully interspersed with interpretive comments to form a living time-line from Outler's youth in rural Georgia to his death in 1989 in Florida. He was able to do this because Outler had made him executor-custodian of his extensive library of papers, letters and personalia. Father widely respected Outler's father, a South Georgia Methodist minister, was self educated and widely respected. Son Albert graduated from Wofford College, then enrolled in Emory University's Candler School of Religion.