I read this book for an Anabaptist history class at a denominational school with direct lineage to the Anabapist movement. I myself did not grow up in this tradition, but have grown to love many aspects of it. This book has surely contributed to this. Estep does a great of job cutting out the fluff and writing a straight forward book on the movement. I particularly liked the last section of the book which focused on the probable Anabaptist connection to the Baptists. Since my theology leans more towards Baptist thinking, particularly the Reformed variety, this was most interesting to me. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the Anabaptist movement and its contributions to modern Christianity.

Gives the historical background, foundation, and progress of the "re-baptizers" as their critics called them. The ministries of the early Anabaptist leaders are followed in detail in both Switzerland, Germany, and Holland. After a historical review of each leader's influence on the movement, the latter half of the book provides a detailed examination of these leaders' positions on matters of doctrine such as infant baptism, the trinity, pacifism, the swearing of oaths, the ban, and civil authority.

Perhaps the most interesting sections of this book relates to the ongoing and violent persecutions which befell the early Anabaptists. Not only the dominant Catholic hierarch but their fellow Reformers made martyrs out of the early Anabaptists. The arguments and misrepresentations made against the Anabaptists by their Catholic and Protestant tormentors helps to define what these people did, in fact, believe in.

A great book for understanding where the Mennonites, Hutterites, and other Anabaptists came from.

This book helps to trace the remarkable strands of this brave movement. All of today's Christians owe a great deal to these pioneers in the demolition of sacralism. Today, if we choose to let our children decide for themselves whether or not to be baptised into the faith, we must credit the people described in this book with the opportunity to do so. As monumental as their thinking was, they are accurately portrayed in this book as the same sort of flawed human beings that we are. The writing is simultaneously sympathetic and honest - an excellent balance.

Roscoe is the seventh novel in Kennedy's "Albany" cycle, the most notable other book of which is the excellent Ironweed, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. It's the only other book by Kennedy I've read, but I liked it well enough to want to pick up the new one, and for the most part am glad I did.

Ironweed is one of those rare novels that translated well to the Big Screen--I thought the adaptation, with Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep and Tom Waits was terrific. Much of the reason why is perhaps that Kennedy is among the most "cinematic" of "literary" novelists, a quality in evidence with the present book, too--in a way that somehow reminds me of D.H. Lawrence, Kennedy is capable of vivid lyrical flights which never detract from an otherwise conventional narrative, and which evoke an overtly visual panoramic landscape. As in Ironweed, Kennedy weaves the surreal in with the realism of the prose, creating a convincing and often brilliant effect where the reader is able to step into the actual conciousness of a character--"hearing" dead people "speak", for example--without missing a beat of the forward motion of the plot.

But that is where the novel becomes a little weighty. Much of the motion of the book is slow and cumbersome, and at times a bit predictable, as we enter the lives of a post-WW II Albany small-time polititian and his world of other politicians, complete with the lack of character one might expect from such characters.

Not that we're supposed to especially like Roscoe, the man, but one never really gets a very clear sense of him or of any of the many other characters in this novel. It's easy to say that this is because Kennedy is suggesting that there's not much to them, but I don't buy the imitative fallacy. We're introduced, mid-stream, to such a plethora of people and their lineages in a mere 291 pages that all the characters, even the principals, are drawn far too thinly to sustain a narrative about events that are less disagreeable than rather tedious and boring. Perhaps I'm missing something because I haven't read all seven books of the cycle, but a novel should stand on its own.

Vivid, lyrical writers like Kennedy, and at times Lawrence, seem to often fall into this predicament. Kennedy is at times wryly funny in a way Lawrence never was, but he seems to want to create a microcosm of America a bit...obviously, a bit too much.

But the actual writing, save for some episodes of forgettable dialogue, soars. At his best, Kennedy is spectacular, a surreal prose-poem stylist who's worth reading simply for the tightness of the imagery and the energy that bursts out of his sentences like atoms splitting in the middle of a consonant. There is no American fiction writer alive who can come close to William Kennedy in this aspect of his prose.

Which is why Roscoe is finally a success. The prose itself creates a narrative of its own, and makes me wonder if conventional standards of character and narrative should even be held to apply to such a vigorous, fresh way of telling a story.

Roscoe is the seventh novel in Kennedy's "Albany" cycle, the most notable other book of which is the excellent Ironweed, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. It's the only other book by Kennedy I've read, but I liked it well enough to want to pick up the new one, and for the most part am glad I did.

Ironweed is one of those rare novels that translated well to the Big Screen--I thought the adaptation, with Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep and Tom Waits was terrific. Much of the reason why is perhaps that Kennedy is among the most "cinematic" of "literary" novelists, a quality in evidence with the present book, too--in a way that somehow reminds me of D.H. Lawrence, Kennedy is capable of vivid lyrical flights which never detract from an otherwise conventional narrative, and which evoke an overtly visual panoramic landscape. As in Ironweed, Kennedy weaves the surreal in with the realism of the prose, creating a convincing and often brilliant effect where the reader is able to step into the actual conciousness of a character--"hearing" dead people "speak", for example--without missing a beat of the forward motion of the plot.

But that is where the novel becomes a little weighty. Much of the motion of the book is slow and cumbersome, and at times a bit predictable, as we enter the lives of a post-WW II Albany small-time polititian and his world of other politicians, complete with the lack of character one might expect from such characters.

Not that we're supposed to especially like Roscoe, the man, but one never really gets a very clear sense of him or of any of the many other characters in this novel. It's easy to say that this is because Kennedy is suggesting that there's not much to them, but I don't buy the imitative fallacy. We're introduced, mid-stream, to such a plethora of people and their lineages in a mere 291 pages that all the characters, even the principals, are drawn far too thinly to sustain a narrative about events that are less disagreeable than rather tedious and boring. Perhaps I'm missing something because I haven't read all seven books of the cycle, but a novel should stand on its own.

Vivid, lyrical writers like Kennedy, and at times Lawrence, seem to often fall into this predicament. Kennedy is at times wryly funny in a way Lawrence never was, but he seems to want to create a microcosm of America a bit...obviously, a bit too much.

But the actual writing, save for some episodes of forgettable dialogue, soars. At his best, Kennedy is spectacular, a surreal prose-poem stylist who's worth reading simply for the tightness of the imagery and the energy that bursts out of his sentences like atoms splitting in the middle of a consonant. There is no American fiction writer alive who can come close to William Kennedy in this aspect of his prose.

Which is why Roscoe is finally a success. The prose itself creates a narrative of its own, and makes me wonder if conventional standards of character and narrative should even be held to apply to such a vigorous, fresh way of telling a story.

Roscoe Conway is a semi-honest lawyer-politician in 1940s Albany. He wants to get out of the whole political realm, but they keep pulling him back. When one of his closest friends and political allies dies under somewhat suspicious circumstances, Roscoe steps in to prevent further troubles to the friend's family when a custody battle ensues. The plot has some interesting twists and fun-to-read-about characters. The dialog is good, almost too good. I can't imagine that people would actually talk like that, but it is a delight to read. For some reason, while reading this novel, I kept seeing the characters from The Road to Perdition. The 1930s mob and the 1940s Albany political machine have many similarities, according to Kennedy at least. Roscoe is a very well-written novel by a talented novelist--perhaps not his strongest, but still quite good.