Journal of a UFO Investigator (audiobook) by David Halperin



If this were baseball, Halperin would be swinging for the fence, but coming up short.

Published by Blackstone Audio in 2011.
Read by Sean Runnette.
Duration: 10 hours, 36 minutes.
Unabridged.

David Halperin's Journal of a UFO Investigator is a semi-autobiographical novel. It ties together UFOs, death, growing up, family dynamics and religion in general (and Judaism in particular) in the story of Daniel Shapiro, a schoolboy growing up in the 60s in far suburban Philadelphia. Halperin is a former professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill with a special focus on Judaism and what he calls "religious traditions of heavenly ascent." Already an established author of non-fictional academic works, this is Halperin's first novel. 

 Danny Shapiro's world is crashing down around him. His mother is slowly dying from heart disease. His father does not understand him. He is Jewish in the heavily Christian suburbs and, as he gets older, this is becoming much more of an issue. He cannot date the girl he wants to date because she is not Jewish and it would crush his already weak mother. His family is Jewish but does not attend services so Danny does not feel the comfort of ancient traditions. Danny is alienated, to say the least. His one and only outlet is his journal of his experiences with UFOs and UFO research. 

 Danny's journal is not necessarily written in chronological order and the reader will suffer quite a bit of early confusion in trying to figure out what stories are journal entries and what stories are taking place outside of the journal. We also find out that Danny's journal is not necessarily factual -- Danny is using it as an escape from the pain and confusion of his real life. He blends his fantasies and his reality together so well that they are hard for the reader to distinguish. 

 Halperin also blends together traditional UFO stories with religious imagery from several religious traditions, although mostly from Judaism. We have traditional UFO stories such as flying discs, the Men in Black and probings from aliens. Halperin blends them together, with references to so many other authors and religious traditions that I often felt like I was being left out unless I scribbled down some notes and went to do some research. 

 The audiobook was read by Sean Runnette. Runnette has a soothing, clear voice. However, there are many times when the voices are not differentiated enough and I had a tough time figuring out who was supposed to be speaking unless it specifically said who was saying each line. 

 The most obvious comparison that I can make with this book is the classic Kurt Vonnegut book, Slaughterhouse-Five. It shares many themes, the same sort of loose structure, especially the nonlinear style. But Vonnegut is the master of dark humor. His tension and dark mood are often punctuated by tension-releasing humor, which allows the tension to build anew. Halperin just hits the same note throughout: "We pick our demons and build our own worlds around them." We limit ourselves, it does not matter if it is by race, class, religion or with conspiracies and UFOs -- we all do it. It is a worthy point but the follow through comes up short. 

 I rate this audiobook 2 stars out of 5.

This audiobook can be found on Amazon.com here: Journal of a UFO Investigator.

Note: I was sent a free sample of this audiobook to review in exchange for an honest review.
Reviewed on May 7, 2011.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts over the last 30 days

THE BALLOT and the BIBLE: HOW SCRIPTURE HAS BEEN USED and ABUSED in AMERICAN POLITICS and WHERE WE GO from HERE (audiobook) by Kaitlyn Schiess

Image
Published in 2023 by ChristianAudio.com. Read by the author, Kaitlyn Schiess. Duration: 6 hours, 27 minutes. Unabridged. I first heard about Kaitlyn Schiess on one of my favorite podcasts: The Holy Post . She is one of the three regular hosts of the show and often serves as their in-house theologian. She is well-suited for this role because she offers well-considered answers and she thinks them through before she answers, rather than just shooting her mouth off - all the more impressive when one considers that she is by far the youngest member of the podcast. I was drawn to The Ballot and the Bible because: 1) I am concerned the rise of Christian Nationalism in America and the damage it does to the Christian witness; 2) I knew that Schiess would give thoughtful answers. The intermingling of Christianity and politics is not a new phenomenon in the United States (or in the rest of the world - but that is not the focus of this book.) Schiess looks at the intermingling of faith and politi
Read more

ILLEGAL (graphic novel) Written by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin. Illustrated by Giovanni Rigano.

Image
  Published in 2018 by Sourcebooks Young Readers. Illegal is the fictional story of two young brothers from Ghana: Ebo and Kwame. While it is fictional, it is based on lots and lots of true stories. Most Americans are very aware that immigrants/refugees are fleeing from their native countries and arriving at the border of the United States and are not aware that a similar thing is happening in Europe.  Europe has a similar refugee/immigrant situation. People are fleeing from the wars in Syria, Sudan, and Yemen. There are also refugees fleeing the brutal poverty and political situations in sub-Saharan Africa. Like in the United States, these immigrants/refugees depend on very shady people to move them closer to their goals. In this story, two young brothers named Ebo and Kwame live in a village in Ghana. They are orphaned and living with a useless, drunken uncle. They have an older sister that has already crossed the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea to look for work but they don
Read more

VANISHING EDGE (National Parks Mysteries #1) (audiobook) by Claire Kells

Image
Published by Dreamscape Media, LLC in 2021. Read by Natalie Naudus. Duration: 9 hours, 13 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: Felicity Harland is a former FBI agent just turned investigator for the Investigative Services Branch (ISB.) ISB is the criminal investigation unit for the National Park Services. They investigate serious crimes that happen in National Parks.  Harland has been called to Sequoia National Park because 2 customers of an ultra-glamping camping service has disappeared in a remote mountainous location called Emerald Lake. No one knows if they are dead, have intentionally gone missing, or have simply wandered off into the wilderness. No one will say anything about who the supposed victims are because this service is ultra-exclusive and treats the names of its customers like its a national secret. Harland, along with an old crusty park ranger, and an ex-Navy SEAL who has just joined the park service search for the missing pair. What they discover next leads them to one sus
Read more

BENITO MUSSOLINI: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (World War 2 Biographies) (kindle) by Hourly History

Image
  Published by Hourly History in 2017. Mussolini and Hitler in 1937. Nowadays, Benito Mussolini is best known as Hitler's far lesser partner in the Pact of Steel (signed in 1939), the formal treaty of the Axis Powers. He is often seen as the weaker partner that may very well have drug the entire alliance down due to incompetence.  But, back when Mussolini took power in Italy in 1922, he was seen, by some, as the vanguard of the future of political organization in Europe - a movement called fascism . He was at least begrudgingly admired by people all around the world.  This is, perhaps, the most balanced of all of the Hourly History biographies. I was mostly interested in a brief look at how Mussolini came to power and what he did once in power. The biography was a little skimpy on Mussolini's years in power before World War II and it won't please students of the war to see how little they discuss of his wartime policies and decisions. That being said, I thought this was a p
Read more

INCREDIBLE HULK: PLANET HULK written by Greg Pak, illustrated by Carlo Pagulayan, Aaron Lopresti, Juan Santacruz, Gary Frank, and Takeshi Miyazawa.

Image
Originally published by Marvel Comics from 199-2007. Synopsis: Hulk is banished from Earth after helping The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, and others defeat a common enemy by using Hulk's brute strength. Hulk has been rendered unconscious and placed on a spaceship. Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) leaves a video message for Hulk to find on the spaceship when he arrives at his destination - a planet with no intelligent life.  Reed knows that it is a wish of both Dr. Banner and Hulk to be someplace where  Hulk cannot hurt anyone and no one can hurt Hulk.  But, a wormhole opens up and sucks Hulk's spaceship to a different destination - the planet Sakaar. Sakaar is ruled by a despotic, deranged emperor. He rules a planet with multiple species - all of them hate each other because he pits them against them against one another. He has discs attached to their bodies to control their impulses and allow him to deliver pain at will. He wears a suit of armor that Iron Man would envy and he r
Read more

DIFFER WE MUST: HOW LINCOLN SUCCEEDED in a DIVIDED AMERICA (audiobook) by Steve Inskeep

Image
Published by Penguin Audio in 2023. Read by the author, Steve Inskeep. Duration: 8 hours, 57 minutes. Unabridged. It's been said that no American has been the subject of more biographies than Abraham Lincoln. I don't know if that it is true, but I do know that it is pretty tough to come up with a new angle on the 16th President. In Differ We Must , NPR reporter/host Steve Inskeep has managed to do just that. Inskeep follows through Lincoln's life and sees how he dealt with people that he had disagreements with. Some of them were major, some were minor. Sometimes, Lincoln responded to these disagreements by befriending the people he disagreed with, sometimes by patiently arguing his point of view, sometimes by appearing to accommodate them only to slowly change their minds, and sometimes by arguing fiercely against his opponent. And, sometimes, as in the case of Frederick Douglass, Lincoln realized he was wrong and changed his mind as  was the case with Frederick Douglass (a
Read more

THE JOURNEY in BETWEEN: THRU-HIKING EL CAMINO de SANTIAGO (Thru-Hiking Adventures book 1) (kindle) by Keith Foskett

Image
E-book Published by Amazon Digital Services in 2010. I have a real soft spot for books about travel - especially travel in odd ways. I have read a book about a guy who backpacked across Europe, a man who hiked across Afghanistan in 2002, a man who biked from England to India, two women who biked from Turkey to China, a man who hiked from Mexico to the Darien Gap in Panama, the same man hiked the length of the Nile River, a man who found a little dog while in a hiking competition in the Gobi Desert, a man who hiked all 48 mountains in New Hampshire with his little schnauzer dog, and more. One of these travel stories was by this author, Keith Foskett. Last year, I read the story of his trip up the Pacific Crest Trail  - from Mexico to Canada and almost all in the mountains. This hike was much more sedate and featured less extremes in the weather. The Camino de Santiago is a well-established route. It has been an pilgrimage route for more than 1,000 years and in the last 30 years or so F
Read more

Appaloosa DVD

Image
A western for grown-ups. It's not about the guns, horses or bullets. It's about friendship, sex and, ultimately, love. Movie released in theaters in 2008. Be warned right now - this movie review is mostly one giant spoiler. Here's the non-spoiler parts right up front. This is a movie that strives to look authentic. The two main characters have known each other for years and have no need for a lot of dialogue - they know each other well, they know each other's habits and their conversations are spare. Many reviewers have missed the whole point of Appaloosa . It was not about two buddies/lawmen bringing peace to a town, although that does happen (mostly) and the gun fights are quick, brutal and ugly. The movie is about what happens when such a partnership is disrupted by a woman. Look at the DVD cover art and you can see it symbolically represented - there is Renee Zellweger standing between Mortensen and Harris. ****Spoiler alert****The rest of the review is jus
Read more

YEARS THAT CHANGED HISTORY: 1215 (The Great Courses)(audiobook) by Dorsey Armstrong

Image
Published in 2019 by The Great Courses. Lectures by Dorsey Armstrong. Duration: 12 hours, 29 minutes. Unabridged. The Great Courses offers a lecture series by college professors that the average person can listen to on their own time.  In this case, Purdue University history professor Dorsey Armstrong is focusing on the year 1215 as a pivotal year.  1215 is well-known to Americans as the year of the Magna Carta, but it is also the year of the Fourth Lateran Council of the Catholic Church. The rest of the lecture series is about general things that were going on around 1215. These include the crusades, a brief look at the Americas, a look at the Islamic world, Japan, and an extended look at Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire. This is a lecture series that could have used a bit of editing. If two hours were removed, that would have been good. Three hours would have been great. This was especially true in the section about Genghis Khan. Armstrong admitted that she was excited about this
Read more

RESOLUTION (Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch #2) (audiobook) by Robert B. Parker

Image
Published by Random House Audio in 2008 Read by Titus Welliver Duration: 4 hours, 40 minutes Unabridged At the end of Appaloosa, the first book in this series, Hitch and Cole have parted ways. Hitch ends up in the town of Resolution, a mining/lumbering town with some small unsuccessful ranches/farms scattered around. Hitch is hired by the owner of a local hotel/saloon to keep the peace inside the saloon. Soon enough, Cole shows up. He is on the outs with his girlfriend again. She has issues - she just has to throw herself at the most powerful man in the room and Cole had finally had enough of it and killed a man she was with. For Cole, this is devastating. He has always followed the law, even if it is arbitrary law that he has written himself. Killing this man broke the law and Cole is now a man who cannot follow his own code. So, Cole just hangs out with Hitch and ponders the meaning of laws and rules and the Social Contract for half of the book. In the meantime, Hitch is
Read more