There Will be no Miracles Here : : a Memoir

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Call Number: 921 Gerald, Casey
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	921 Gerald, Casey	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Casey Gerald comes to our fractured times as a uniquely visionary witness whose life has spanned seemingly unbridgeable divides. His story begins at the end of the world: Dallas, New Year's Eve 1999, when he gathers with the congregation of his grandfather's black evangelical church to see which of them will be carried off. His beautiful, fragile mother disappears frequently and mysteriously; for a brief idyll, he and his sister live like Boxcar Children on her disability checks. When Casey--following in the footsteps of his father, a gridiron legend who literally broke his back for the team--is recruited to play football at Yale, he enters a world he's never dreamed of, the anteroom to secret societies and success on Wall Street, in Washington, and beyond. But even as he attains the inner sanctums of power, Casey sees how the world crushes those who live at its margins. He sees how the elite perpetuate the salvation stories that keep others from rising. And he sees, most painfully, how his own ascension is part of the scheme.

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Glad to know it but not good enough to recommend submitted by CarolSeidl on April 5, 2019, 12:38pm I just I finished reading There Will Be No Miracles Here, by Casey Gerald. I give it 3 out of 5 stars. That’s a pretty low rating for me because I don’t usually read a book unless it has already received a great deal of praise. TWBNMH is a highly-lauded new memoir and its author has led a remarkable life but I found the narrative to be overly rambling.

Casey Gerald, is the son of Rob Gerald, the first black quarterback at OSU who played during the late 1970s. As my dad was an ardent Buckeye, I know I watched the senior Gerald on TV many times growing up. So, I was surprised to learn that Rob Gerald’s performance was enhanced by cocaine after an OSU alumnus introduced him to the drug in an effort to boost his performance during the 1977 Orange Bowl. Thereafter, Gerald became a habitual coke user and after college eventually turned to heroin. These and other unsettling anecdotes are presented in the younger Gerald’s memoir.

Casey Gerald grew up in a rough area of Dallas TX. Both of his parents were addicts and absent for much of his childhood. He was primarily raised by a grandmother and his sister. Yet, he managed to stay off the streets, paying some attention to school, and benefiting from the discipline meted out by football coaches. He ended up with a full ride to Yale, where he played defensive back for four years, founded an effective outreach program for black male students, spent summers working on Wall Street, graduated with a 3.6 GPA in Political Science, and went on to earn an MBA from Harvard. Definitely not the typical path for kids with his background.

The problem I have with the book is that it wanders somewhat vaguely, never delving deeply. Gerald admits that the motivation behind writing it was therapeutic. He had demons that he needed to exercise and so disciplined himself to write three pages per day that largely followed his stream of consciousness. It shows. The book seems like he wrote it for himself, not for others. I can imagine that for many people, writing about themselves is boring. You already know the story of your life, so putting it on paper is tedious. You leave out myriad details because to you they appear obvious or mundane. You include certain anecdotes that you want to remember but the context and inspiration behind your actions is omitted. That’s how I see this book.

I did learn many things about Gerald’s life. Yes, it’s extraordinary—his list of accomplishments is awe-inspiring, the number of famous people he’s rubbed shoulders with impressive—but much was missing from the story. For example, Gerald mentions a friend named Elijah that had meant a great deal to him but with whom he had a falling out. How does the reader know that Elijah was of special importance? Only because Gerald says so. His description of the actual friendship is minimal. This is a problem throughout. I felt that Gerald’s writing never gave me a full enough picture for me to understand why he had certain attachments, motivations, passions, fears, etc.

On the plus side, the book has a fair number of precious one-liners. One my favorites comes when Gerald describes attending CPAC. Disappointed with the pace of change under Obama, he was fed up with liberal inaction and thought that perhaps he should join the Republican Party. An enthusiastic and well-connected mentor gained him entrance to the conservative activist conference. Gerald, who is gay, was taken aback by the barrage of attacks on homosexuality leveled by the speakers. He summed up his leftward retreat by saying that there’s a fine line between being open-minded and a fool and that, thankfully, he hadn’t crossed it.

In summary, while there is a lot to admire about Casey Gerald and his striking life story, I found his writing unexceptional. The lack of richness is at the heart of my undistinguished rating.