Reviews

Reviews for Santa of the Lighthouses

Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus, November 26, 2002
Reviewer: Craig Andrew from New York
A very delightful and heartwarming book. There are many examples in life of how certain people are able to capture the true essence of giving to others. Edward Snow was one of them. The happiness and joy that Edward brought to the lighthouse keepers and their familes was priceless.

Reviews for The Traveling Charbonneaus

More Than One Kind of Journey, March 20, 2003
Reviewer: jreadersar from Saratoga Springs, NY USA
Bernie Schallehn skillfully and effectively employs the journey metaphor in his novel The Traveling Charbonneaus. Not only does the Charbonneau family travel to out-of-the-way places in the north country of New York State to play country music in expectation of their long awaited big break, they also journey in other ways to discover who they really are as individuals and as members of a family unit under the leadership of patriarch, Wen`dell(his favored pronunciation), the local septic cleaner. As years pass, a "big break" eludes the family, except for instrumentally and vocally gifted daughter Chantelle.

Some members of the traveling Charbonneau Family Band never leave home, yet loyal and loving wife June asserts her individuality when she makes the decision to travel with the family no longer since by Wendell's edict, Chantelle doesn't exist due to her "betrayal."

Daughter Patrice, gifted with extensive knowledge of musical instruments and engineering, takes the risk of falling in love with her father's choice of replacement for Chantelle in the family band.

Cherished son David learns coping strategies for dealing with his disability. Soon David begins to acquire personal integrity and much greater independence.

Much later and an undisputed musical success, Chantelle risks a surprise visit home. Patrice finds true love and a committed father to her son. Even later, June and David find even more independence working together at the local IGA. Through it all, Wendell Charbonneau continues to 'live large," make music, and love fiercely. He is committed to his belief in this truth: Neither he nor we are what we do for a living. The tragedy is that we often live as if we are. Wendell is such a literary force to reckon with he keeps readers on the edges of their seats as he lives his life pulling out all the stops. Near the end of the book and Wendell's life, we also see his greatness and heroism in other memorable ways.

Pulling on my heartstrings, February 19, 2003
Reviewer: A reviewer, a speech/language pathologist
This was one of the best, if not the best book I have ever read. I cried for half and hour at the conclusion of the book. I could not put it down. I read it in one day. (pretty good for a working mother of 3!!)

If you like something different..., December 5, 2002
Reviewer: Thomas J Schreck from Albany, NY USA
Look, if you like your characters and plot lines mindless and predictable you'll want to skip past this and Schallehn's other books. If you're looking for a read that'll make you think,confuse you and occasionally warm your heart, then, by all means, get the Charbonneaus. Schallehn has a nack for developing unique characters and bringing them to life--they're usually not pretty but they're [darn] sure not predictable. Along the way you'll get a chance to do what alot of us got out of the habit of doing since the advent of cable tv--think. Take this trip with the Charbonneaus--I'm guessing you'll enjoy the ride.

North country blues, July 31, 2002
Reviewer: R . C . Moore, from San Francisco, CA
I loved this book.Mr.Schallehn is a gifted writer, whose characters are easily recognizable and infinitely believable. The story moves quickly. He has really captured the small town North Country life,and the hopes and dreams of the people living there.There is so much to like in this book: comedy, drama, tragedy, and the entire breadth of human emotions. I recommend it highly.

Reviews for Paradox Outpatient

A KNOWLEDGEABLE NOVEL, May 4, 2002
Reviewer: John W. Thomas, MD from Stuyvesant, New York
As a former addictions treatment professional I read PARADOX OUTPATIENT with frequent knowing chuckles. It is replete with more real life treatment situations than a barrelful of alcoholic monkeys. Schallehn also is crafty with his style, likening guitar playing to a sex act. Finally the story line is poignantly realistic. I highly recommend this first novel to folks on either side of the counselor's desk.

Paradox Outpatient, June 10, 2002
Reviewer: Tony Bender (see more about me) from Oakland, CA
Paradox Outpatient was a breath of fresh air from my diet of 'mystery & suspense' novels. This story allowed me to sit in on the world of therapy sessions, of which I know little. It provided good insight on both sides of the equation. I also enjoyed Micheal's side trips into the street-level bar band scene. However I felt his extra-marital relation and subsequent outcome were predictable. I look forward to reading Mr. Schallehn's next effort.

-Laurie Nadel, Ph. D.,
Author of Sixth Sense

“Bernie Schallehn takes the reader on a fast-paced trip behind the scenes of the gritty world of drug rehab. An edgy, insightful, and sardonically witty book.”

-Jane Howle
Publisher - Baskerville Publishers, Inc.

“It’s a most entertaining read, providing an overview of a profession that is a bonanza for the inveterate snoopers into other peoples lives that we have become as readers of fiction…surely this work has commercial appeal… the book is fascinating.”

- Gerry Rising,
 ArtVoice of Buffalo, NY

“In Paradox Outpatient therapist-author Bernie Schallehn takes us into the

 real world of an addiction counseling center where patients and staff address equally serious personal problems. His episodes range from distressing to hilarious, but their overall impact is sobering. The reader gains insight into the processes and challenges of drug therapy in the context of a good story.”

Thomas J. Schreck
-Freelance writer and an independent reviewer (based in Albany – writes for Capital Region Business Review, Boxing Illustrated, Professional Counselor, and Catfancier Magazine)

 The recovery boom was bound to have a backlash.

Paradox Outpatient, a novel by former addiction therapist Bernie Schallehn, takes some challenging shots at the world of addiction, recovery and therapy through its protagonist, Michael Altimari.  A burned out, under achieving drug therapist, rock guitarist, husband and father, Altimari is a walking contradiction.  He prepares for his addiction job interview with a healthy dose of Valium to steady his nerves, and goes on to anesthetize himself with alcohol and other mind candy to get through his band gigs—through music is supposed to be his passion.  And last, but not least, his family relationships, through clearly loving, suffer with Altimari’s ambivalence.

Best of all in Schallehn’s work, the reader gets a  peek through the back of the circus tent of the cultish drug treatment business—a business staffed by not-so-lovable losers barely aware of their own dysfunction and obsessed with their own power struggles and unresolved craziness.  It isn’t a pretty picture, though one gets the sense that this stolen view of the drug treatment world is an authentic one.  One need only to hit the remote and select any number of afternoon psychobabble-based talk shows to hear the long stories of some recovering soul, drenched in his or her self absorption, spin the same stories, with the same tempo and cadence that we’ve heard over and over and over.  The Paradox clinic gives us a framework to understand where the hell these people are coming from and who’s responsible for them.

Schallehn has probably blown his chance at ever getting honored by any of the 12-step organizations as that holier-than-thou program fails to make the trip through Paradox unscathed.  His attack doesn’t slam you over the head; rather, it seeps into your consciousness through the motivations, thoughts, and fears of Schallehn’s characters.  The power-addicted senior therapist, the unresolved secretary, the food-obsessed counselor, the recovering dentist taken to histrionic-based interventions, the incompetent drug counselling minister, all walk is through the pseudo science that the addiction field has anchored itself on for years.

Altimari eventually evolves out of the business and takes a trip that is partially a growing experience and partially a self-serving exercise in immaturity.  The voyage leads the reader on a pre-midlife adventure that every married man facing the rest of his life can relate to-if not by similar experience, then in those cold moments experienced late at night, usually accompanied by one’s own choice of mind altering substance.  Schallehn’s exploration of real life family involvement, and later, commitment, rings truer than today’s Dr. Lauralizing of what family is supposed to be.  Though Altimari vacillates between self-serving pursuits and selfless family devotion, Schallehn paints a character, who, like most of us, is not one thing-not glorifying of the human condition, but nonetheless refreshingly realistic.

The author’s own chops as an addiction therapist shine through in often disturbing detail.  You won’t find the processing of some middle class angst throughout the novel’s therapy sequences.  Be prepared instead for a group milieu with characters who relive such trauma as the sodomizing of a helpless foster brother or the numbness faced by a woman’s addiction-induced prostitution.  Unlike the antiseptic therapy scenes and the pabulum fed to us in such movies such as “When a Man Loves a Woman” or “Clean and Sober,” not every character, patient, or therapist, works through to a happy ending or even a nice measured resolution to their trauma.  People in therapy have problems and very often those problems last.  Schallehn’s book also shows that those entrusted in treating and healing others often aren’t much better in managing their own existence.

Altimari eventually moves on, not just from the drug treatment business but that in the way many 30 something men never do.  Schallehn weaves an exploration of a life that many men will relate to; though many who don’t spend the time thinking about their thinking will not.  The trip Altimari takes opens his eyes, but once again the novel’s treatment of his epiphany is subtle and more life-like than most descriptions.  Schallehn spends a lot of time in his characters’ heads and he writes as they think, often painting a picture that is not complimentary to the human condition.

Be that as it may, Paradox Outpatient delivers on its promises.  What you get isn’t what you expected but, like Schallehn’s characters, it may wind up being exactly what you need.