3 Review(s)

This is a riveting 'memoir of weakness' from a very strong writer. It explores and ponders 'weakness', which in Gary Fincke's family was the catch-all term for every possible human flaw - physical, psychological, or spiritual. Fincke grew up near Pittsburgh during the 1950s and 1960s, raised by blue-collar parents for whom the problems that beset people - from alcoholism to nearsightedness to asthma to fear of heights - were nothing but weaknesses. In a highly engaging style, Fincke mediates on the disappointments he suffered - in his body, his mind, his work - because he was convinced that he had to be 'perfect'. Anything less than perfection was weakness and no one, he understood from an early age, wants to be weak.