MARINER BOOKS A N A M E R I C A N R E Q U I E M HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY “Told with integrity and style, this is a moving account of the generational strains of the Vietnam era, and the timeless agonies of A Reader’s Guide fathers and sons.” —The New Yorker In this dramatic, intimate, and tragic memoir, James Carroll recovers a time when parents could no longer understand their children and when young people could no longer recognize the country they had been raised to love. The wounds inflicted in that time have never fully healed, but Carroll accomplishes a personal healing in telling his family’s remarkable story. The Carroll family stood at the center of the conflicts swirling around the Vietnam War. A former FBI man, Lieutenant General Joseph F. Carroll was director of the Defense Intelligence Agency through most of the war and helped choose enemy bombing targets. His wife, Mary, a devoted friend of the hawkish Francis Cardinal Spellman, felt sympathy for antiwar priests and tried to balance her devotion to her husband with love for her sons. This shattering history is shaped by the choices made by three of JAMES CARROLL the five Carroll sons. Dennis became a draft fugitive. Brian joined the FBI and hunted draft resisters and Catholic radicals. James, fulfilling his AN AMERICAN REQUIEM father’s abandoned dream, became a Roman Catholic priest. But he soon allied himself with Catholic radicals who were one brother’s target and God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us another’s support. While America’s streets exploded with protest, the “I cannot recall being more Carrolls’ precious and privileged world collapsed. touched by a book about a real An American Requiem is above all James Carroll’s story. An Elvis fan, an altar boy, a general’s proud son, a civil rights organizer, a Eugene family since John Gunther’s McCarthy volunteer, a college chaplain, a resister—he was also a priest DEATH BE NOT PROUD.” who broke his vows. And all the while he loved his family and wor- —Stephen S. Rosenfeld, shipped his father, even as the war came between them.

WASHINGTON POST Only after he left the priesthood to become a writer and husband and father did Carroll come to understand fully the struggles his father BO had faced. And in this book he draws on his novelist’s skills to tell his— NAL OK IO A and part of his country’s—story. An American Requiem is a heartfelt— T W A A and heart-rending—benediction on his father’s life, his family’s struggles,

N R D and the legacies of his own generation.

W I N E R N FOR DISCUSSION

MARINER BOOKS We hope the topics and questions below, coupled with the quotes under ISBN 0-395-85993-X • $12.00 • 288pp • 5 1/2 x 8 1/4 • 18 B/W photos “Carroll on Carroll,” may stimulate a deeper appreciation of An American Requiem. National Book Award Winner 1. How did Lieutenant General Joseph Carroll, in his person and his “A flawlessly executed memoir” (Judges’ Citation) history, embody the forces that shaped James’s life and behavior?

www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com 1 of 3 Copyright (c) 2003 Houghton Mifflin Company, All Rights Reserved 2. How are various hierarchical authorities, both institutional and indi- 13. In chapter 5, Carroll identifies “three distinct but related revolutions vidual, portrayed in the book? How do father and son, individually, —interpersonal, religious, political—that I underwent as a Paulist.” relate to them? Does he convincingly demonstrate the occasions and nature of each of these “revolutions” as the book proceeds? 3. What is the significance of Carroll’s beginning the book with his ordination Mass and closing with Joseph Carroll’s requiem Mass? Is 14. In chapter 6, Carroll refers to “the worship of false gods, the mak- this framing device appropriate to the progression of the book’s nar- ing of idols” as “the sin to watch out for.” What does he mean by rative? this? Can you identify the false gods and idols to which he refers?

4. In chapter 1, Carroll writes that, during the early years of his anti- 15. What bearing on his personal story do Carroll’s narratives of events war activity, “I was two people, and . . . each of my selves seemed to outside his own direct experience or observation have (e.g., politi- have a coherence and integrity that were belied by the fact that I cal corruption in 1930s Chicago, the FBI’s harassment of Martin could not bring them together.” Does he succeed in integrating his Luther King)? Are they necessary to his, and our, understanding of disparate selves? his experience?

5. In chapter 1 and again in the final chapter, Carroll writes, “I believe 16. The words “priest,” “poet,” and “prophet” can be applied, individ- that to be made in God’s image is to do this: arrange memory and ually or together, to specific persons who appear in Carroll’s nar- transform experience according to the structure of narrative. The rative. Who are these priests, poets, and prophets, and how do they story is what saves us.” How does this belief relate to both Carroll’s embody the qualities of each role? personal development and his book? 17. Does Carroll present a coherent picture of the true dynamics of his 6. The concept of redemption recurs in various contexts, not all of them family, including his own relationships with his mother and four religious. What kinds of redemption are presented? Does one even- brothers? Does he focus too narrowly on his relationship with his tually assume precedence? father?

7. What are the similarities and differences between Carroll’s life and 18. On the book’s final page, Carroll makes a number of statements his father’s? How did his father’s life and career shape Carroll’s that reflect on both his life and his book. How does each of these own? statements relate to everything that has come before?

8. What photographs in the book seem of particular importance? What “War had come down to war between us. I saw the lesson of it is their significance in the progression of James Carroll’s life? clear: we both lost.”

9. Several men play important roles and have profound influences, both “The broadly political is always personal for me.” positive and negative, at key points in Carroll’s life. Who are these men and what are their roles and influences? “The story is a victory over the need to be victorious.” 10. In chapter 3, Carroll writes that “[presidential] inaugurations had been like a sacrament of the streets to me, rituals of rebirth,” and he later refers to “the holy mysteries of Washington.” What other reli- CARROLL ON CARROLL gious or liturgical terminology is used to characterize political and social events, places, and people? What effect does the use of this “Like many writers, I really only have one story to tell. In my case, it is a terminology have? father-son story. Appropriate enough, I guess, since, as I say, my way into it was through the father-son story of God and Jesus.” 11. What biblical allusions and images occur in the book? How do they enhance Carroll’s narrative and our understanding of his “All my stories are about people falling short. An American Requiem is story? the story of my own.”

12. Does Carroll succeed, at the book’s conclusion, in achieving “the “For me, prayer is handing over to God the things we can’t carry by our- acceptance and forgiveness and affirmation” that, in chapter 4, he selves. In this case, I feel like I’m handing over to whoever reads the book longs to bestow on his own younger self? what I couldn’t carry by myself.” —Publishers Weekly, May 27, 1996 www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com 2 of 3 Copyright (c) 2003 Houghton Mifflin Company, All Rights Reserved J A M E S C A R R O L L F U R T H E R R E A D I N G

Angela’s Ashes • Frank McCourt

The Architect of Desire: Beauty and Danger in the Stanford White Family • Suzannah Lessard

Armies of the Night • Norman Mailer

Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference • David J. Garrow

Born on the Fourth of July • Ron Kovic

Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father • Richard Rodriguez Born in Chicago in 1943 and raised in Washington, D.C., where his father was an Air Force general and the director of the The Duke of Deception: Memories of My Father • Geoffrey Wolff Defense Intelligence Agency, James Carroll was educated at Washington’s Priory School and at an American high school in In Pharaoh’s Army: Memories of the Lost War • Tobias Wolff Wiesbaden, Germany. He attended Georgetown University before entering St. Paul’s College, the Paulist Fathers’ seminary, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam • Robert McNamara where he received his B.A. and M.A. degrees. Carroll has been a civil rights worker, an antiwar activist, and a community orga- Jubilee! 1939–1989: Fifty Years a Jesuit • Daniel Berrigan nizer in Washington and New York. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1969. The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and the Five Lives Carroll served as Catholic chaplain at Boston University of a Lost War • Paul Hendrikson from 1969 to 1974. During that time, he studied poetry with George Starbuck and published books on religious subjects and A Perfect Spy • John le Carré a book of poems. He was also a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter (1972–1975) and was named Best Columnist Running in the Family • Michael Ondaatje by the Catholic Press Association. For his writing on religion and politics he received the first Thomas Merton Award from This Boy’s Life: A Memoir • Tobias Wolff Pittsburgh’s Thomas Merton Center in 1972. Carroll left the priesthood to become a writer, and in 1974 was a playwright-in-residence at the Berkshire Theater Festival. His plays have been produced at the BTF and at Boston’s Next For additional copies of this Reader’s Guide— Move Theater. In 1976 he published his first novel, Madonna while supplies last—please contact your Houghton Mifflin Red, which was followed by—among others—Mortal Friends representative, or call Houghton Mifflin at (800) 225-3362. (1978), Prince of Peace (1984), and Memorial Bridge (1991). The City Below (1994) is now available in a Houghton Mifflin trade-paperback edition. He has written for numerous publica- tions, including The New Yorker, and his op-ed column appears ISBN 0-395-86943-9 (pack of 10 Reader’s Guides) weekly in the Boston Globe. James Carroll lives in Boston with his wife, the novelist Written and produced by Hal Hager & Associates, Somerville, NJ Alexandra Marshall, and their two children. Author photo: Patricia Pingree

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