Customer Reviews:
 An Exercise in Moderation June 27, 2002
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Spiritual memoirs tend to follow the same plot line. It's the boy meets girl story with God substituted for the girl. There's nothing wrong with the formula, the author's job is to make it fresh and interesting. Dan Wakefield doesn't get the job done. The structure of "Returning" is linear, the pace is ponderous, and the insights only moderately interesting. In fact, the entire book is an exercise in moderation, written by a moderate talent, who, on the evidence presented, has lived a moderate life. It's no wonder Bill Moyer's, a paragon of moderation, liked this book. There are parts of this book where the author could have revealed more. The account of his nervous breakdown is scary, but all too brief, and on too many occasions - bouts of adolescent [activity], unsuccessful psychoanalysis, addiction to alcohol - Mr. Wakefield seems like a kid in a confessional. He rushes through his sins in order to be unburdened, but also undiscovered. It doesn't work. If we give the penitent the benefit of our attention, he should give us the benefit of a compelling story.
 Spiritual comet April 22, 1997
19 out of 21 found this review helpful
I started reading this book while Comet Hale-Bopp was at its brightest. I quickly came to understand that journalist/novelist Dan Wakefield's journey was the spiritual version of a comet. He begins with a fairly typical midwest Christianity, then moves to agnosticism, then moves to atheism, then moves to attending a Unitarian church, within which he moves back into Christianity.His journey, like that of a comet, took him far from his home, his roots, his faith, his God, to the cold and darkness that filled his life. But when the return journey began, like a comet, his life grew brighter as he came nearer to the faith that he found to be the center of his journey. As he looks back, Dan Wakefield sees the ways that God has been with him throughout the long journey. Like the gravity that calls a distant comet to make its journey back toward the sun, so was God pulling on Wakefield. Reading the story of his return was more stimulating than watching Hale-Bopp on its journey.
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