Lovely Little Shelf

The Book: Same Kind of Different As Me: A modern-day slave, an international art dealer, and the unlikely woman who bound them together, by Ron Hall & Denver Moore

The Story: Denver Moore and Ron Hall really could not have led lives that were more opposite than the ones that they were leading:  Denver was a former share-cropper (pretty much a slave) who was living in a shelter and Ron was a super-rich art dealer.

Ron’s wife Deborah had a real heart for the homeless and started working at the shelter where Denver was living.  He was the meanest, toughest, most hard-to-reach man there, but for whatever reason, Deborah felt really drawn to him and encouraged Ron to start a friendship with him.  At first, Ron really did just pursue Denver because his wife wanted him to, but over time it turned into a true friendship.

In alternating chapters, Ron and Denver both talk a lot about how they felt about this new friendship.  Ron was blown away that he could love someone so different than himself.  Denver was touched and truly changed by the fact that Ron saw value in him and trusted him.

Faced with a horrible circumstance,  Ron and Denver’s friendship continues to grow deeper as they learn to lean on each other.

What I Thought: No where on the book jacket did it say that this was a straight-up religious non-fiction book.  I had no idea.  I am a Christian and “get” that part of the story so it didn’t annoy me, but I just want to warn you right off that if that kind of thing gets under your skin, you’ll just want to skip this.  Faith and Jesus and church and Heaven come up over and over and over.

That being said, I was sort of blown away by this book.

Initially I was just amazed at Denver’s life up to this point.  I had heard of share-cropping but wasn’t entirely sure what that meant and surely didn’t know that it went on as recently as the 60’s and 70’s.  I was amazed when he said that he had no idea that WWII, Korea or the Vietnam War had ever happened- he was totally separated from the rest of the world- but just living in Louisiana.  Totally wild.  I am not sure if he is literate now or if he just did his part of the book orally and had someone transcribe it, but his “accent” comes through clearly in his chapters and I really did feel like I could hear his voice by the end.

Ron’s past was less interesting and to be perfectly honest, I never really liked him.  I was touched by his relationship with his wife, but as far as him as a person… eh.  I felt like his devotion to Christianity was a little bit… off.  He admitted that when he was younger he really did the “religion thing” to appease his wife, but from the book, I felt like he was like that straight to the end.  I don’t want to be quick to judge, but he just never seemed real to me like Denver did.

Their friendship and their story together was kind of wonderful.  At one point, Ron’s daughter needs help moving some stuff and he can’t do it.  Denver offers to do it with his newly acquired driver’s license.  He said he was even kind of joking- it was something like an 800 mile trip and he didn’t even have a car.  Ron handed him a few hundred dollars and the keys to his truck.  This was a big turning point not only in their friendship but in Denver’s life.  Never had anyone just trusted him with their money and their stuff and their family.  It gave him worth and he started believing in himself.  Kind of beautiful.

The part that just about destroyed me though was Deborah getting sicker and sicker.  I think I need to stop reading books about spouses dying.  I’ve been hovering over Shaun for weeks and checking on him all the time and trying to force him to go to the doctor for no reason.  I also make him hug me about every 10 seconds. I need to read a happy book or two.  Seriously.  Anyway, Deborah getting sick was awful.  Reading it from Ron’s point of view was just about more than I could take.  I ugly-cried.

The quote that the book title comes from is kind of beautiful. I dog-eared the page so I could share: “I used to spend a lotta time worryin that I was different from other people, even from other homeless folks. Then, after I met Miss Debbie and Mr. Ron, I worried that I was so different from them that we wadn’t ever gon’ have no kind a’ future. But I found out everybody’s different – the same kind of different as me. We’re all just regular folks walkin down the road God done set in front of us. The truth about it is, whether we is rich or poor or somethin in between, this earth ain’t no final restin place. So in a way, we is all homeless – just workin our way toward home.”

Conclusion: Seriously a beautiful, gut-wrenching story.  Know going into it that there’s going to be a lot of religion presented and just be ready for it.  I don’t think it’s presented in a shove-it-down-your-throat kind of way, but it is there.  Also, if you see your significant other reading this, expect that they’ll hover for a few days and need lots of hugs.