Every so often I write something that detours somewhat from my usual A Capacity for Wings musings. So here I am in the middle of the month with a book review. (Not to worry, I will be back at the end of the month with the usual musings on life, and notes on hope and flourishing).
This is not a book I would have picked up on my own based on the title Shooting Up: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Addiction. (The author kindly sent me a copy to review). It is a departure from my typical reading choices. But as I read, I realized how much it does relate to my writings on lament, family, hope, and our capacity to rise above our circumstances.
Here are my thoughts:
“The kids were always dragged along by the riptide of their parent’s lives” [i]
We first meet Jonathan Tepper as a seven-year-old child, delivering pamphlets to the heroin addicts at the request of his father.
I am hooked from the very first scene of this story. I suspect this is going to be harrowing.
I grew up listening to and reading stories of missionaries. As a child, I was fascinated by the exotic lands and people I learned about. I handled the masks and jewellery from distant places the visiting missionaries would bring to church as they modeled a traditional costume. I wondered about their lives.
I read missionary stories – Hudson Taylor, Don Richardson’s Peace Child, Amy Carmicheal, Elisabeth Elliot and David Wilkerson’s The Cross and the Switchblade.
Reading as a child or teen, it all sounded adventurous and heroic.
Reading missionary stories now I cannot help but see the colonialism, white exceptionalism, and superiority that pervades them. I used to not flinch when I read or heard how those zealous for God would go to distant lands to “bring Jesus to the heathen’ but it makes me cringe today.
Shooting Up: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Addiction is a different kind of story and it is much more than a missionary story. It is a coming-of age account, a wrestling with faith tale, and a chronicle of profound love and grief.
The Tepper family lived in a drug-riddled neighborhood in Madrid, Spain – missionaries to those whose lives are controlled by addiction and the crime that so often accompanies that life. After being told their sending organization wanted nothing to do with a drug rehabilitation program, they set out to do it anyways.
In many ways it looked like a fool’s errand, full of danger and the improbability of success. Elliott Tepper (the dad) had what seems like an unshakable faith and a boldness that appeared much like insanity. What this family did have was a whole lot of love and empathy for the people they lived amongst. This missionary story is less about converting and colonizing than it was about loving the “least of these” as Jesus calls his followers to do. It began with a few men detoxing then grew to became Betel, a worldwide movement of self-funded drug rehabilitation centers.
In the book we meet the larger-than-life characters through the eyes of Jonathan, a growing child. We watch them find freedom and a new purpose through the work of the Tepper family and an encounter with God. Through their intimate day-to-day interactions these once addicted men become family. They also become leaders and wounded healers for others.
The story takes place in the mid 80’s to the mid 90’s. What they could not have known when they first arrived was how AIDS would ravage their community.
It is often said that those who spend time with the dying, learn how to live. This certainly seems to be true of the author and their community as they experienced loss after loss.
Jonathan skillfully tells his story with piercing honesty. He writes about his doubt and anger alongside his deep love for family, both biological and adopted, and his insatiable curiosity. This is a story that is both heartbreaking and strangely hopeful. It is about the resilience of humans to overcome and persevere against all the odds, and it is about the power of love and kindness to transform lives.
Having been dragged along into his father’s riptide, Jonathan and his brothers experience a life filled with tragedy and loss, yes, but also extraordinary love.
Expect to be deeply moved and challenged by this story.
Jonathan Tepper A Rhodes Scholar, with degrees in History and Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MLitt from the University of Oxford. He is the Chief Investment officer at Prevatt Capital, and author of several finance books as well as his memoir, Shooting Up.
[i] pg. 107
Beautifully written review. I feel similarly about missionary stories now. But will add this to my to-read list.
Thank you very much for sharing your impressions of this book. It sounds extremely compelling and beautiful in many ways.