Reviews

"After reading and relishing and mulling and cringing at the sixty handwritten letters her father had written his mother from the Pacific Ocean in WWII, Lasley F. Gober decided the only way to deal with the swirl of her emotions was to write him back. So what if nearly seventy years had passed since the homesick boy took pen to paper, or if he'd died two decades before she discovered the letters? This erudite American Studies teacher, with her capacious mind and keen intellect, needed to tell him how it all turned out, even if  it meant revealing that the one-time heroes - the John Waynes, Chalres Lindberghs, and General Douglas MacArthurs - had lost their aura. She struggled with the private sentiments not altogether admirable or in character with the father she knew and adored and came to recognize his 'greatest generation' left behind burn pits of toxic-isms that continue to smolder today. What emerges is a powerful father-daughter colloquy they never got to have." - Hank Klibanoff, co-author of The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in History

"Lasley F. Gober asks the question haunting a generation: what did Daddy do in the war? In the effort to answer her own question, Gober takes us along for a ride through American history and literature, recasting childhood memories with the benefit of wisdom, retelling stories we think we know of war and peace, of Moby Dick and Slaughterhouse-Five. She invites readers to ask themselves: what were our parents like, before us? What was our country's identity, before us? And finally, how do we live now, in light of all we know of America's secrets, sins, and conspicuous silences? Letters From Inside the Whale is an immersive, ambitious, fiercely personal project by a big-hearted, passionate teacher and writer."  - Sanjena Sathian, author of Gold Diggers and Goddess Complex, graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, former artist-in-residence professor of creative writing at Emory University, winner of the Townsend Prize in Literature

Lasley Gober's epic work, LETTERS FROM INSIDE THE WHALE, is a rich, multi-layered experience. It is not only a fascinating historical, beautifully-written-war-story-read, but also an invitation for the reader to jump aboard...to time travel. Yes, you better buckle up as you join Gober on her journey...as she compares notes with her Dad on just what it means to be human...to live, to feel...in any place...any circumstance...any time.  Structured on conversations-never-had but now brought to life, the book moves forward by presenting Gober's father's letters from his tour of duty in the Pacific during WWII along with the author's heartfelt, thoughtful responses from a contemporary perspective.  Each chapter, each conversation, reveals a letter written, a story told, through the lens of war...be it one of dreams, or horror, or beauty, or kindness, or family affection, or courage. Each story, each chapter is also lit by the author's response, all in the context of her brilliance, her empathy, and her mastery of literature and music. Have your computer handy...you may need it...to deepen the "ride" as you stream the verses and quotes from Dylan or Dickinson or Churchill or Springsteen...all the references that infuse the book...the stories... with richness and meaning, hope and fun. Gober's book, seen as a whole story...or as a collection of stories...with revelations and questions...is nothing short of a being a fresh and powerfully engaging experience of war, stories and family.  -Terry Banta, Reader's Review