Reviews

The brilliance of this penetrating of life captures the deepest roots of family life and brings us face-to-face with the reality that we are all prisoners of our family.

Dr. N. Joyce Payne
Founder, The Thurgood Marshall College Fund
Member, President's Advisory Committee for Women and
       the White House Conference on Families (Carter Administration)
Former Executive Director, National Alliance for the Public Trust

Carroll Green is a man on a mission to help others to achieve greater success in their personal and professional endeavors. He walks his talk, and talks his walk…which is why this book is so impactful. Read it and learn how you too can make a difference to create a legacy!

Dr. Willie Jolley, CSP, CPAE
Best Selling Author of "A Setback Is A Setup For A Comeback" and "An Attitude of Excellence"
www.williejolly.com

Nothing seems to take you on such an exciting experience as, "ALMOST HEAVEN". It takes you down the road to visit ancestors while exposing you to wonderful photos and details. Carroll Green is skilled at working you into intelligent thoughts, then shifting you to something entertaining and amusing. Whoever you are or wherever you live, West Virginia or New York, you will relate to this book, "ALMOST HEAVEN". This book is a beacon of hope for those starting out with meager means hoping to make it successfully. It tells you your past doesn't have to define your future. After reading this book you will feel uplifted and positive about life's possibilities. Don't cheat yourself..... this book will change your life!

Audrey B. Chapman
Author, Therapist & Former Talkshow Host

Plenty of memoirs focus on individual experiences; but few tie them to greater social movements, issues and forces as adeptly as "Almost Heaven."

Vintage black and white photos throughout lend visual embellishment as readers follow Green's journey through Bishop, a community changed by civil right efforts, and comments on forces of corporate and religious oppression that continues to operate in modern times.

At no point does the narration lag or becomes self-serving. Even more importantly, Green draws important connections between key decisions in his life and points where they failed others: "Youthful decisions can be tantamount to disaster. My decision to serve my country over serving my son proved to be a fatal flaw in his development."

These clear insights, paired with experiences, life lessons, and observations of both his own and those of others in his community, elevate Carroll Green's story to more than just a singular experience. This all contributes to a superior autobiography that is riveting, revealing and thought-provoking.

Diane Donovan
Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
This review will also appear under Donovan's Shelf in the September 2018 edition of the Midwest Book Review and on Diane's web site: www.donovansliteraryservices.com

"Almost Heaven", notwithstanding the biography's title, Green rejects any notion that "Almost Heaven" exists anywhere in America. Yet, Green was as deeply influenced by the foundation of love he enjoyed as a child in the coal mining community of Bishop, West Virginia as he was by the injustice he witnessed across the country. In his earliest years, blacks and whites lived and worked collaboratively in his village. Children played together, adults worked side by side and most important, they all shared what they had, without selfishness or envy. From that foundation, Green learned the true meaning of loving ones neighbor as oneself.

Green's narrative is compelling, honest and transparent. Putting aside respectability politics, Green allows himself to be vulnerable with his readers, acknowledging his own mistakes and inviting us into the "secrets" of mental illness that so many families hide.

Ultimately Green's messages are clear: Love is kindness and generosity towards all. But love is also the call to speak out against injustice whenever we see it. Carroll Green has done just that in his life and in this autobiography.

Kristin Henning
Lawyer, Advocate, Teacher.
Agnes N. Williams Research Professor of Law, Georgetown University

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