RIM's Review of Inner Journey Home Letters to My Son, Love Dad by Malcolm Baptiste

Inner Journey Home Letters to My Son, Love Dad by  Malcolm Baptiste

As any parent that has a child you want what’s best for him or her, even when that means neglecting yourself of things or pushing past your own capacity. However some parents’ capacity is small because their own parents couldn’t get past generational issues, which then get passed on until someone can break the pattern.  In this story a father reaches out to his son that is now incarcerated and tries in his own way to encourage him and yet explain to him why things are they way they are.

Correspondence between father and son is a series of letters from the father’s prospective starting with the son’s court appeal trail date until the day they take a family photo.  In efforts to ease the son’s time in jail, the father starts from the beginning, his beginning, describing to his son the relationship with his parents, mostly his mother.  In efforts to make a son a better man she teaches him in a cruel way how to be man, talking negatively about him and worse yet to him, telling him things like he is worthless and will never be anything.  Later in life when the father becomes a drug addict he hears all the things she told him like a tape player and fights daily to prove her wrong and prove to himself he is worthy of all the good things life has to offer.

In need of help to get clean and stay clean the father enters rehab. In rehab he addresses all his issues from the negative tapes of his mom, the need of the drug, dating, and his own mental state.  Through some of the exercises in group therapy the father finds salvation and journaling. He begins to journal his life’s experiences in and out of rehab, in efforts to connect to his son he sends him excerpts of what he has written and what he feels about life and most importantly he constantly conveys his love for his son.

Readers probably would like to have liked to see more dialogue between the father and son. All the reader knows is that the son does respond to the letters but not aware of what he says. However readers can appreciate the honesty of the father, because most parents want to protect their child or children by not telling them what could essentially keep them from harm’s way.  So often we need help but to afraid to reach for it. A father’s love versus his attendance seemed to be an issue but in this case his love superseded his lack of attendance and a son sees a life outside of the 8 by 10 he is in.

My Rating 3 ½ stars
Review by Karen Reynolds
Review for Readers In Motion Bookclub