BOOK REVIEW: mONARCHS AND MENDICANTS by dan groat
What an engaging read Monarchs and Mendicants was for me. I can’t begin to say how much I enjoyed the characters in this book. Dan Groat takes us into the microcosm of individuals who have raised day-to-day survival to an art form, who have chosen to cast off the entrapments so many deem imperative in exchange for the freedom of getting by in life on their own terms. Their “city,” a sub-city of St. Louis, has its own rules and regulations, and most of these occupants have their own personal ambitions: ambitions pursued with a tenacity that begs the question as to why they chose to abandon the nine-to-five gristmill. In some cases, readers never know why some of them are homeless except through those readers’ connection with that part of themselves that also longs to tell life to take the gristmill and shove it.
Gifford Ulrich is reason enough to read this book. He’s a man fighting his way through PTSD on his own terms: terms afforded him by taking the unpaid retreat and escape that homelessness provides. Ulrich needs healing, and as he struggles to heal himself, he learns how much that healing depends upon caring about others. His journey from mendicant to monarch in his own life gives readers a story they can get lost in and characters in whose plights they cannot help but become emotionally entwined. Book Reviews by Kathy awards Monarchs and Mendicants four stars.
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