Ever read a book, love it, but come away shaking your head, not sure what to believe?
That's a picture of me, after inhaling every word of Philip Smith's memoir, Walking Through Walls.
A week later, I'm even more baffled.
Read the entire review at HeadButler.com
 |
 |
Philip Smith grows up mystical in Walking Through Walls. |
 |
 |
Smith, an artist and former managing editor of GQ magazine, reflects on his youth in 1960s Miami. He wanted “a father who mowed the lawn, drank beer, and fell asleep in front of the TV.” Instead, his dad, Lew Smith, was a successful interior decorator, who went through a “macrobiotic transformation” and began tuning into mystical vibrations. Young Philip was introduced to fasting and yogic diets, while Lew explored esoteric spirituality, reincarnation, Bach Flower Remedies and such metaphysical arcana as the akashic records, an “ethereal Library of Congress” of every soul in human history: “[Philip] wasn't sure if this endless invisible database also included reruns of I Love Lucy or Perry Mason, but it probably did.” After a 1968 encounter with famed trance medium Arthur Ford, Lew found his true calling as a psychic healer, and “overnight our isolated house became Lourdes central.” Smith's fine flair for waggish anecdotes is especially evident in his riotous recall of being suckered into Scientology at age 17. He looks back at his father with much affection in this mirthful memoir that bounces between the comic and the cosmic. Smith is a gifted humorist, and readers are certain to request more merriment.
—PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY (Sept. 16)
Lew Smith was a successful interior decorator for Miami's rich and famous ththing changes family dynamics quite like the presence of supernatural powers.roughout the 1960s and '70s. When he returned home after a full day of putting together stunning interiors, he took off his tie and zeroed in on his real work, that of a psychic healer.
As young son Philip watched, Lew Smith would transform himself in ways the youngster would later describe as similar to sharing the house with Clark Kent and Superman. The psychic serviced clients who ranged from mobsters and Caribbean dictators to a gaggle of assorted celebrities.
In a fascinating, highly readable book, the younger Smith reveals what it was like to grow up in a household where séances, talking spirits and exorcisms were as common as fish at Friday night supper. Even though there were, of course, benefits to having such a gifted father, there were also downsides.
For example, he claims the invisible spirits tended to behave like nagging relatives and escaping his mystical home life was not always an easy thing to do. As people from throughout the country flocked to the Smith home in search of a miracle, the house became much like a cross between Lourdes and the set of "Rosemary's Baby."
Philip Smith's memoir is moving, provocative and unexpectedly witty. It is the insightful story of how a son came to terms with both his father and his unusual home life, a spirited coming-of-age story like no other.
Smith is the former managing editor of GQ magazine and an artist who divides his time between New York and Miami.
—TUCSON CITIZEN
“Philip Smith’s compellingly readable memoir of his father—a psychic, exorcist, hands-on-healer and...decorator!—is as entertaining as it is bizarre, all the way to its unexpected and deeply moving conclusion.”
—John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and The City of Falling Angels
"At long last, a subject worthy of a memoir. Philip Smith recounts the story of his father, a visionary, a psychic healer, and a saint, with matter-of-fact grace, without ever denying how difficult it was to be the child of a man with unlimited supernatural gifts. Lew Smith was a man we are unlikely to ever see the likes of again, one of the few fathers in literature whose death I mourned as if I’d known him. I wish I had known him; he was a miracle. Every page of Walking Through Walls reminded me of how vast the universe, and how meager the dreams of our philosophies.”
—Haven Kimmel, author of Iodine and A Girl Named Zippy
"Walking Through Walls is a funny and poignant memoir about growing up in a family as strange and mysterious as the Bermuda Triangle—Dad is a physic healer with a day job interior decorating for dictators, the dead speak, and adolescence is an altered state of grace."
—Dirk Wittenborn, author of Pharmakon and Fierce People
“A startling story, beautifully told… If you believe that science can explain everything, this book might change your mind. Walking Through Walls is a window into a fascinating world through the sensitive eyes of an observant son.”
—Delia Ephron, author of Hanging Up
In his witty and whimsical memoir, former GQ managing editor Philip Smith vividly recounts growing up with a father who was interior decorator to Miami's rich and famous by day and a psychic healer by night. From his dad's kidnapping by a Caribbean dictator in pursuit of his decorating services, to midnight séances that give new meaning to the nickname Magic City, the book is heavy on local lore and rich in character-driven charm.
—MIAMI MAGAZINE
In this astounding coming-of-age story, Smith, former managing editor of GQ, describes his father's transformation from Miami's famed decorator-to-the-wealthy into something altogether more strange—the then-backwater city's resident psychic healer who performed exorcisms and seances and rid both the rich and the poor of infections, cancer, and paralysis. Here's the twist: according to the author, Lew Smith could truly heal people. The problem is that the author wanted a normal dad, one who sells insurance, comes home from work, has a beer, and falls asleep in front of the TV. A 1970s teen rebellion ensued. Hilarious and touching; for fans of the goofball and paranormal.
—Elizabeth Brinkley, LIBRARY JOURNAL