In 1984, the year his father died, O'Donnell was a highly paid executive with a troubled marriage. "Money and networks were what I thought were the most important things in the world," he confesses—and then he met Arthur, a Harvard-educated lawyer, fellow commuter and committed Christian. Through conversations with the wise older man and participation in a Christian renewal movement called Tres Dias, O'Donnell's goals and lifestyle were transformed. Readers of his earlier book, Letters for Lizzie
, will recall his wife's struggles with breast cancer and heart failure. This new book steps back a decade before her health crisis to look at the author's interior conflicts and eventual conversion. It is not, however, a spiritual memoir, nor is it really about Arthur, a one-dimensional character who listens with infinite patience and offers the occasional helpful platitude ("Making it is meaningless, Jim, without a higher purpose"). It is, rather, a motivational book, replete with short paragraphs and zippy sentence fragments, written "to encourage men, especially, to seek good friends... who will help them discover what's important in life." In a sweet epilogue, Arthur pays tribute to O'Donnell: "We shared a friendship, every bit as nourishing to my faith as it evidently proved to his." Though sometimes preachy and often repetitive, the book offers gentle wisdom and hope to exhausted strivers. (Jan.)
