Let's eat Grandpa!

Unfinished Business by Lee Kravitz

Read: as a review copy from Library Thing Early Reviewers (Bloomsbury, 224 pages, originally published June 2010)

Rating: 5 out of 10 (finished 9/7/10)

Synopsis: After losing his job, Lee Kravitz, a workaholic in his midfifties, took stock of his life and realized just how disconnected he had become from the people who mattered most to him. He committed an entire year to reconnecting with them and making amends. Kravitz takes readers on ten transformational journeys, among them repaying a thirty-year-old debt, making a long-overdue condolence call, finding an abandoned relative, and fulfilling a forgotten promise. In each instance, the act of reaching out opens new paths for both personal and spiritual growth. All of us have unfinished business — the things we should have done but just let slip. Kravitz’s story reveals that the things we’ve avoided are exactly those that have the power to transform, enrich, enlarge, and even complete us.

Overall Impression: Well, I loved the idea of sorting out things that have been weighing on you for years; things that you know you should have dealt with or changed, but that you never got around to. We all have stuff like this — there was a boy that was teased mercilessly in elementary school, and I threw my share of verbal stones in his direction. To this day, I feel absolutely wretched when I think about what this poor kid endured. I’ve tried finding him on FB, but he doesn’t seem to be on there, which actually worries me. I wish I could find him and tell him that I’m so sorry for any pain I may have caused him.

Anyway, Kravitz decides to hunt down people he has unfinished business with. He’s lucky, however, in that he has the time, money, and support to travel around the country finishing things up. It felt a little unfair — how are the rest of us supposed to do these sorts of things when we have jobs and families and responsibilities? And many of the visits he made to people felt a little self-indulgent — like the stories were too much about him and not enough about the other person sometimes. For instance, he promised an African boy he’d help build a library in his refugee camp, but nothing really came of it – his family decided to see if they could send a box of books over there, but you never find out if they do it. It was sort of I-wanted-to-do-this-and-now-here’s-something-to-make-me-feel-mildly-better-about-reneging-on-a-promise-to-a-starving-child…

But it was still interesting to see him attempt to reconcile different parts of his past with his current life. I particularly liked the chapter about getting his dad and uncle on speaking terms again. For him to discover things about his father he never knew was quite beautiful.

Pros: A really great idea, and one that we should all consider. Are things from our past weighing us down when it would only take a little bit of “finishing” to get whatever it is off our shoulders?

Cons: Felt a bit repetitive in places (visit after visit after visit) and sometimes his essays felt too self-centered (granted…it is a memoir!).

Other books I’ve read by Lee Kravitz: none

Other blogger reviews: Book a Week with Jen and Lesa’s Book Critiques

Legal gobbledygook: I received this book free from LibraryThing as part of their Early Reviewers program.  The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”