Fascinating but flawed
dallasvoice.comPersonal Effects author CREDIT Karrie Porter Bond The gist of ‘Personal Effects’ is unforgettable, but its problems make it a rough read TERRI SCHLICHENMEYER | Bookworm SezBookwormSez@yahoo.com Personal Effects: What Recovering the Dead Teaches Me about Caring for the Living by Robert A.
Jensen; c.2021, St. Martin’s Press, $28.99; 294 pages. Pick up eggs. Milk. Macaroni. Bread. If you don’t jot down a list of things you need to find, you’ll forget something.
Apples. Light bulbs. Flour. Putting things on paper helps you to remember what you need and what’s missing. But in the new book, Personal Effects by Robert A.
Jensen, the pick-up is more personal; the items, more heart-wrenching. Robert Jensen’s growing-up years were not what you’d “call a normal childhood.” His mother suffered from mental illness; his father treated him as “a secondary concern.” It perhaps didn’t help that there was no room for discussion about Jensen’s being a boy “who liked boys as much as girls.” Says Jensen, “I hope you never have to see the things that I’ve seen … .” He doesn’t say that because of his personal life, though, but because of his job: Jensen is an expert in recovering human remains and personal effects when disaster, accidents, murders and battles occur.
