<i>The Same Kind of Different as Me</i> by Ron Hall & Denver Moore

Non-Fiction. Hardback from Thomas Nelson. Published in 2008. 224 pages. Purchased at Half-Price Books.

I ended up reading this book in a round about way. It’s my mom’s book club book. I found it for her at Half Price Books and since she doesn’t need it until the end of August, I went ahead and read it before sending it to her. I wish I could say I liked the book. I felt ambushed about half way through when it became a cancer story. Perhaps that doesn’t make sense, but having lost one of my sons to cancer and then a few years ago my brother, it is hard to read stuff like that without somehow steeling myself for it first. In any case, I just didn’t care for how it was written, even beyond the cancer part of the story. Maybe a bit too much of patting themselves on the back. I don’t know. I did not feel like it was that way when they were talking about Deborah, but when talking about themselves, I did. Perhaps a story like this is better done by someone outside of the narrative? There is a chance I’m completely off base, since many people really like the book. And, in the sense that it reminds and even compels us to remember those less fortunate than us, it is worth reading.

Publisher’s summary:
Meet Denver, a man raised under plantation-style slavery in Louisiana in the 1960s; a man who escaped, hopping a train to wander, homeless, for eighteen years on the streets of Dallas, Texas. No longer a slave, Denver’s life was still hopeless-until God moved. First came a godly woman who prayed, listened, and obeyed. And then came her husband, Ron, an international arts dealer at home in a world of Armani-suited millionaires. And then they all came together.

But slavery takes many forms. Deborah discovers that she has cancer. In the face of possible death, she charges her husband to rescue Denver. Who will be saved, and who will be lost? What is the future for these unlikely three? What is God doing?

Same Kind of Different As Me is the emotional tale of their story: a telling of pain and laughter, doubt and tears, dug out between the bondages of this earth and the free possibility of heaven. No reader or listener will ever forget it.