The Unbreakable Boy: A Father's Fear, a Son's Courage, and a Story of Unconditional Love
By: Scott Michael LeRette / Narrated By: Lloyd James
Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
What a refreshing, what a LOVING look at fatherhood!
I wasn’t sure that I was going to like The Unbreakable Boy. After all, Scott LeRette is a total and unmitigated turd all through the beginning of the book. He bemoans the fact that he got a nice girl pregnant. He bemoans the fact that he’s a father with not just one but TWO kids (as the story progresses). A wife? Kids? A mortgage? Financial woes? Oh! And then there’s the fact that his oldest boy has a serious condition whereby the boy’s bones break at the drop of a hat! Plus he’s on the autism spectrum! Plus he has some really serious developmental delays! How UNFAIR it all is!
I thought I was going to haaaaate this book. Especially as LeRette is really quite candid about what a self-absorbed hard-drinking jerk he was. I’d just finished Father’s Day by Buzz Bissinger, whereby HE too is “candid” about what a crapass father HE is, with moaning, bitching, mean and petty bellowing galore, and I thought I was going to have to blow yet another gasket about some poor kid being dealt not only a difficult hand by Life, but having a rotten dad to add to his woes in the deal also.
But oh how wonderful things turned out for young Austin. Cuz Scott learns soooo well along the way. From his son. From his other son. From his truly extraordinary wife who has the guts, and the Faith, to kick his sorry bum to the curb when he gets to be too much of a hindrance. The man swears off alcohol after damned near killing his boys by driving drunk and recklessly; he turns to God; he turns to his wife.
And that opens him wiiiiiiide open to how fantastic his son is. Don’t get me wrong; the man doesn’t skimp on the details: Life with Austin is hard. There are the boy’s many ailments, yes, but there are some bouts with violent psychoses that the boy deals with also, leading Austin to a few stints in psych wards and many, many rounds of medications. But I guess what I really like is how Scott COMPLETELY yields to God, to Church, to family, and to love of that family.
This is a book about how awesome life can be if you have the guts to stand back and love life in all its messed up glory. And I damned near shed many a tear near the end there where Scott writes a letter of love to his wife where he speaks of how much he loves her. Cuz the man GREW into that love, and he celebrates every single godawful thing they’ve gone through together in their journey together. How many of us can embrace our lives, warts and all, and come out with more love in our hearts than we ever believed possible. This from the man who started the book off with an Oh nooooo! She’s going to waaaaant things from meeeee!
He does do a few stupid things throughout the book that had me rolling my eyes. He plays a game with his other son, the AMAZING Logan, that Austin can’t bear NOT to be a part of, and that winds up breaking Austin’s back. But, like I said: It was about rolling my eyes only cuz it’s SUCH a GUY thing to do (Back when my husband and I worked on the same dorm with little boys, our manager had to tell my husband that he really should refrain from taking the kids up the slide in the red wagon and sending them careening, much to their howling delight, down the slide; that it miiiiiiiight not be the saaaaaaafest thing to do…. MEN and BOYS, I tell ya!).
I also have to admit to being a tad put off by the narration in the beginning. I’m used to Lloyd James as a narrator of impersonal self-help books, or from staid audiobooks on religion, so it was odd to hear those smooth tones conveying angst, love, trauma, warmth. Still, I believe that was MY problem, not the problem of Lloyd James. Because as it went on, he totally sold me on Scott being a truly dear and loving father, a devoted husband, a devout follower.
The Unbreakable Boy was a really warm and wonderful look at fatherhood of two fantastic boys, of learning to love all that you’re given, of learning to love and forgive yourself. Austin had sooooo many more Xs dealt to him than Zach did in Bissinger’s Father’s Day, but Austin, at least, had the great good fortune to get Scott LeRette as a Dad! Huzzah to the whole LeRette family!
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