May 08, 2015 Publishers Weekly
The last time I saw my best childhood friend, we got in a fight over a book. We were standing around outside the community center, taking a break from the high school reunion I’d flown back to Missouri to attend. I’d long known that my friend was an extremist. He was the first of us to drink, to smoke weed, snort crank; he wanted everything, in heaping helpings. While most of us dabbled, he dove, hard head first. Being his wingman through high school and for a few years after was dangerous and fun. By the time of this reunion, though, he’d beat all of his addictions with God—for starters. Standing in the cold so he could smoke (his only remaining vice), he wanted to convert me, and his secret weapon was a book. But it wasn’t the Bible.
