A MAN CALLED DAVE is a stunning testimony to the power of grace in a person's life. The book is the conclusion to the fantastic autobiographical series about Dave Pelzer begun with A CHILD CALLED "IT" and continued in THE LOST BOY. Here, in the conclusion, we see what made Dave arrive at triumph and forgiveness when his life might have simply been consumed by bitterness and probably the repeated pattern of alcohol or drug abuse, as well as a repeat of the pattern of giving out to others the kind of emotional abuse to which he himself had been subjected.

Beginning his life as a beaten, whimpering "It" locked down in his mother's basement, the boy was finally rescued from the hell of child abuse he was forced to live in. But the emotional scars stayed with him even as he went from one unsuccessful foster-care situation to another, trying to find some semblance of a childhood through the haze of obliterated feelings and hazy fears. Dave simply had too few points of reference to put his trust into anything. Yet he finally found a foster-care situation that gave him a fighting chance at a normal life.

In a stunning reversal of reality as most of us know it, the one person who was supposed to give this boy love, his Mother, was the person who was the most demonic being in his life. "Mommy" became "The Mother", a cold and evil person capable of physical attacks on him. One can hardly imagine a greater hurdle to overcome: that of a mother's love denied. If it is said that "Only a mother could love him" of the worst of criminals, then to have that deepest love in childhood removed must surely be the most painful feeling of all. Tough, hardened men will cry out for their mother's love when facing death, for its bountiful joy is a deeply remembered thing, but when a mother chooses to forsake her role as a loving nurturer of her child---what then? That memory, that pain stayed with Dave for years even when he began to get himself "under control." It's enough to make one mad at God and mad at one's self even as one is angry at the mother "figure." And, as the book shows us, to have a happy life, a person must be in balance and in harmony on all fronts.

So Dave survived childhood and adolescence. After Dave became a young man, he was determined to come to grips with what had happened back there. After he had been in the Air Force a few years, one day he decided he was going to go back and confront his mother, in a non-threatening way. He just wanted some answers. So he went to see her and he asked her about why she had treated him the way she had. Her response, even after all this time: "YOU WERE TRASH, BOY."

One might think that to be called and treated as trash by the main woman in his young life might have turned Dave away from all women forever. And yet, by the greatest of ironies, it was a woman that really opened the door to Dave's salvation as a man.

No. It was not the woman he married. At least not the first woman he married. She was someone he loved, but it seems apparent from the story that she did not truly understand him. In time, the first marriage he had ended.

The woman who brought him to the place where he could work through his salvation, as Dave tells it in the story, was an assistant book editor named Marsha Donohoe. She was no trained therapist, but she gave him what he was searching for all of his life: she believed in him. He says in his book dedication: "To the lady who gave her all to make me the man I am today, my lovely bride, my best friend, Mrs. Marsha Pelzer. You make me whole and will forever be my princess." Yeah!

As the book amply illustrates, how many men's failing lives would be saved if they had a woman who truly believed in them with all their heart like Dave Pelzer did? How many women's failing lives would be saved if they found a man who believed in them that way too? How many children would be saved if they just had that one person who cared about them no matter how ugly or "inconvenient" or even youthfully obnoxious they were? The finding within all of this is that in the end, in a relationship, great sex, great wealth, and great power are not the bottom line things we need in our relationships if we are to have healing and wholeness. We need someone to believe in us with everything they have. Dave found that someone, and through it he found his way out of the dark and into the light.

Because of Marsha, Dave was finally able to overcome the ravages that his alcoholic mother inflicted upon him and he was finally able to understand and, yes, to forgive her. He saw through his personal feelings to the pain to which she, "The Mother" had been subjected, and in coming to feel pity and sympathy for the inner child within his tormenter, he could finally…forgive she who had been his greatest enemy. Thus Marsha was an instrument of ultimate insight and, and Dave puts it, she was the instrument of God's grace on his life. The book seems to say that even in the extremely unusual event that a mother may not love her child, God's love never ceases, and God will find a way to get his grace and new life to us if we don't give up.

This is the outstanding conclusion to an outstanding trilogy of books. Dave Pelzer is today a nationally-known speaker helping thousands of children and adults to be inspired to come to healing and life. I especially recommend this book to teachers and administrators in the school systems, those who work in the foster-care system, those who work in the mental health and substance abuse-recovery systems, all parents, and, of course, persons who were abused as children. This is a story that is good news, and it is a story we need in this time. Five stars.


*****



Recommended: Yes