A Song in the Night

April 2, 2012
A constricting illness sparks an outgoing life in this exuberant memoir. Massie (Loosing the Bonds), an Episcopal priest and environmental activist, suffered from hemophilia that kept him in a wheelchair—its worst effect is crippling joint swelling—in childhood. Sensitized by suffering and forced to live largely in his imagination—his scenes from a daydreaming youth are evocative and touching—he envisioned a vigorous, morally engaged future for himself. That hope came true in spades; even his disability yielded public benefit when, after contracting the HIV virus from tainted blood products, he turned out to be immune to AIDS and became an important subject of medical research. Massie’s eclectic, overachieving career sparks a wealth of cross-cutting insights—most trenchantly when he is simultaneously attending the Harvard Business School and ministering to a blue-collar parish whose flock is on the receiving end of the brutal corporate efficiencies taught in his classes. The narrative sometimes wallows in uplift as the author communes with everyone from Ted Kennedy to Nelson Mandela, and his account of using green investing to nudge and audit companies toward sustainability lacks heft. Still, Massie’s success at shrugging off his fetters makes for a moving saga of faith and perseverance. Agent: Melanie Jackson.

May 1, 2012
Born with hemophilia, Massie's childhood combined bouts of intense pain and disappointment with unabashed joy and lavish family affection. In this moving memoir, the author (Loosing the Bonds, 1997) recounts how this doubled-edged environment laid the foundation for a life filled with compassion and activism. Frequently bedridden and shut out of normal adolescent activities, the author became a reader and thinker. "As I observed others, I also inched away from my self-centered view," he writes. "I realized that many, if not most, other people faced their own struggles." Massie continually questioned perceived injustices or institutional unfairness. Whether these unjust conditions existed in the form of racism, cultural and class divides in college, a haphazard and unjust system of free-market health insurance or belligerent corporate attitudes, Massie sought change for those affected. His educational and professional credentials are impressive. He attended Yale Divinity School, Harvard Business School, completed "a valuable stint at the Kennedy School of Government," taught at Harvard Divinity School and ran for political office in Massachusetts. No matter which issue Massie faced, his goal remained the same: "I want everyone to thrive." Massie faced a severe health challenge in the form of Hepatitis C, which debilitated him for years until he received a liver transplant, and years earlier, he had contracted HIV during a blood transfusion, though the disease never developed into AIDS. Massie offered himself to Massachusetts General Hospital as a research subject, resulting in a seismic shift in how the medical field looked at HIV. Without sentimentality or a partisan point of view, Massie offers a refreshing alternative from the divisive discourse rampant within much of today's culture. "Let us choose a new way of talking to each other that honors each other's dignity even as we disagree, perhaps profoundly, with each other's views," he writes in the epilogue. A testament to the strength and goodness within the human spirit.

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May 15, 2012
Massie was born with hemophilia and suffered constant pain throughout childhood, learning amazing patience and endurance. During a blood transfusion, he contracted HIV but never developed AIDS. With that kind of background of understanding suffering, Massie was attracted to theology, going to Yale's divinity school. A burning interest in business also led him to business school to study the lack of connection between compassion and commerce. During the 1980s, while at Harvard, he felt a huge disconnect between his life as a minister at a small church with an aging population and as a student in classes focused on ever more useless and overpriced products. He looked at Adam Smith's concepts of the invisible hand of capitalism with new eyes and wrote about morality and capitalism through the prism of apartheid in South Africa, which was supported by American investors. Massie went on to become a major advocate for corporate responsibility for protecting the environment. This is an inspiring story of one man's struggle with illness and a sharp analysis of moral, social, and economic issues.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)