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American Leftovers
When three children follow their parents through eastern Europe on Bible-smuggling adventures in the early 1970s, they have no idea their father is fleeing a felony warrant for his arrest.
Returning to the States, they face third-culture questions of home and identity. They also deal with sexual situations and abuse, while settling into an evangelical bubble with their parents who pastor a fast-growing church.
Everything collapses when their father runs off with an eighteen-year-old girl, leaving behind his family and church. This forces Heidi, Eric, and Shaun to reconcile their own spiritual fervor with the lies and dysfunction so close to home.
Returning to the States, they face third-culture questions of home and identity. They also deal with sexual situations and abuse, while settling into an evangelical bubble with their parents who pastor a fast-growing church.
Everything collapses when their father runs off with an eighteen-year-old girl, leaving behind his family and church. This forces Heidi, Eric, and Shaun to reconcile their own spiritual fervor with the lies and dysfunction so close to home.
- GenresNonfiction
324 pages, Paperback
Published March 4, 2023
3 people are currently reading
96 people want to read
About the author
Eric Wilson
131 books466 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Eric Wilson is a retired NY Times bestselling author with 21 published books in over a dozen languages. He wrote fiction (suspense, mystery, supernatural), film novelizations, and nonfiction (biography, memoir, travel).
Eric's books, in order of publication:
Shattered Nerves
(unpublished--written in high school)
Something Suspicious in Bear Flag
(unpublished--written in college)
Dark to Mortal Eyes
Expiration Date
The Best of Evil
A Shred of Truth
Facing the Giants
Flywheel
Fireproof
Field of Blood
Haunt of Jackals
Valley of Bones
One Step Away
Two Seconds Late
Three Fatal Blows (cancelled)
October Baby
The Eagle's Nest (cancelled)
Amelia's Last Secret
Alice Goes the Way of the Maya
Taming the Beast: The Untold Story of Team Tyson
Minutes Before Midnight (cancelled)
Samson
From Chains to Change
American Leftovers
What Are You Going to Do?
Confessions of a Former Prosecutor
Come Back Stronger (date not set)
Through the Storms We Faced (never found publisher)
Eric Wilson is a retired NY Times bestselling author with 21 published books in over a dozen languages. He wrote fiction (suspense, mystery, supernatural), film novelizations, and nonfiction (biography, memoir, travel).
Eric's books, in order of publication:
Shattered Nerves
(unpublished--written in high school)
Something Suspicious in Bear Flag
(unpublished--written in college)
Dark to Mortal Eyes
Expiration Date
The Best of Evil
A Shred of Truth
Facing the Giants
Flywheel
Fireproof
Field of Blood
Haunt of Jackals
Valley of Bones
One Step Away
Two Seconds Late
Three Fatal Blows (cancelled)
October Baby
The Eagle's Nest (cancelled)
Amelia's Last Secret
Alice Goes the Way of the Maya
Taming the Beast: The Untold Story of Team Tyson
Minutes Before Midnight (cancelled)
Samson
From Chains to Change
American Leftovers
What Are You Going to Do?
Confessions of a Former Prosecutor
Come Back Stronger (date not set)
Through the Storms We Faced (never found publisher)
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
February 28, 2023
A great memoir of family trauma and crises of faith. The only reason why I am giving this book four stars is because I think I may have enjoyed a little bit more insight on how the events recorded in this book affected how Eric's, Heidi's, and Shaun's view religion and what critiques they have concerning it. Perhaps they will write a book addressing these things in the future. I'll definitely be adding that on my TBR list if that ever happens. Longer review to come! *Thank you to Eric and Chalice Press for a free ebook copy of the book to review. All thoughts and opinions are mine.*
June 21, 2023
Reading this book as a third culture kid myself I felt like the authors told my own story despite theirs having happened 30 years before I existed. The geckos that loose their tails, the people you befriend then never see again, the travel, the constant change, the splash baths with cold water I could feel them all as if it was just yesterday as I read this book. Validating those experiences of my own that tend to fade and seem dream like. I will recommend this book to TCKs and their parents.
The creative shift from each sibling’s perspective as they walk the reader through over a decade of their lives keeps you turning the page waiting to know what happens next.
For the first time in my life, as I read how these teens navigated the devastating choices of the adults around them, from the suspicious activity and parts of conversations over heard to the chaotic aftermath of the revelation I felt like I’d found friends that understood. Despite never having met the authors and a generation gap, knowing others have walked a similar road is a powerful balm for those who’ve lived through tragedy. Although my own tragedy was not exactly like that in this book it has eerie similarities in its unfolding and aftermath that made my own traumatic experience feel seen as I read theirs. It was not a triggering experience but rather like finding another human being that said “this sucked and it mattered and still it was survivable.” Vulnerability has a power to it and this book is full of it in so many ways. Thank you Eric, Heidi, and Shaun for sharing your experiences and story with the world, you’ve given voice to things so many of us have experienced and made us feel seen and understood in the process. It was so moving I had to take a day to process it all before leaving this review. Highly recommend!
The creative shift from each sibling’s perspective as they walk the reader through over a decade of their lives keeps you turning the page waiting to know what happens next.
For the first time in my life, as I read how these teens navigated the devastating choices of the adults around them, from the suspicious activity and parts of conversations over heard to the chaotic aftermath of the revelation I felt like I’d found friends that understood. Despite never having met the authors and a generation gap, knowing others have walked a similar road is a powerful balm for those who’ve lived through tragedy. Although my own tragedy was not exactly like that in this book it has eerie similarities in its unfolding and aftermath that made my own traumatic experience feel seen as I read theirs. It was not a triggering experience but rather like finding another human being that said “this sucked and it mattered and still it was survivable.” Vulnerability has a power to it and this book is full of it in so many ways. Thank you Eric, Heidi, and Shaun for sharing your experiences and story with the world, you’ve given voice to things so many of us have experienced and made us feel seen and understood in the process. It was so moving I had to take a day to process it all before leaving this review. Highly recommend!
September 11, 2023
This is a book that you won’t want to put down. It is happy, sad, joyful and brutal. Takes your mind places that are unimaginable. I admire the courage of these three siblings to tell all. This is a MUST READ!!
October 11, 2023
This is a brutally honest look at the struggles and triumphs of one family’s journey together. There are many topics discussed that are still not mentioned in Christian circles today but need to be. The struggles discussed are what many people are dealing with everyday but no one talks about. The authors did an excellent job of telling their story. The bared many details that others would not mention but did so in such a way to describe what their family has dealt with. This is a family we all can relate to in some way or another. I both read and listened to the audiobook. I would highly recommend the audiobook as it is narrated by the authors with each reading their part of the story.
August 5, 2023
American Leftovers takes you through a roller coaster of emotions in this heart-rending true story of siblings who experienced nail-biting, life-threatening situations while growing up as ministry kids around the world. This is movie material!
This book is for anyone who grew up in ministry. The Wilson siblings show us an inspiring path of survival, healing, and faith as they came out of extreme circumstances with the ability to follow their own God-given paths in serving others. Thank you to Eric, Heidi, and Shaun for sharing this story!
This book is for anyone who grew up in ministry. The Wilson siblings show us an inspiring path of survival, healing, and faith as they came out of extreme circumstances with the ability to follow their own God-given paths in serving others. Thank you to Eric, Heidi, and Shaun for sharing this story!
January 11, 2024
From the start, you're made aware things won't be rainbows and sunshine for this Christian family, so take off those rose-tinted lenses. You're told something has already happened and some other tragedy will occur, so I kept feeling the same sense of dread from King's "Carrie" here. It's a hard glimpse into a hard, messy life with some humor and hope to end on, along with teases of what could potentially come next... perhaps?
June 19, 2023
A refreshingly honest memoir written by three siblings who were raised in the church. Dad is a born again Christian and Mom is a devout follower of Jesus and His Word. Life is far from perfect and these three authors tell it like it is.
December 18, 2024
American Leftovers is a true-life wild ride of a tale, told with gut-wrenching honesty by three siblings about their experiences growing up in an extreme religious missionary family. From smuggling Bibles as children across high mountain passes to fleeing rape mobs on dust-laden back country roads to witnessing wonders time and again that were hard to call anything other than "miracles," Eric, Heidi, and Shaun share the many bizarre moments of their unconventional upbringing with candor and insight as they reflect back as adults on what all of it meant and how those experiences shaped them into the people they are today.
As you might suspect, several dark threads run through the narrative, as the authors wrestle with the religious duplicities and outright lies they experienced at the hands of their parents and others they encountered within the religious communities they served, as well the larger questions of identity and purpose and meaning that arise out of such a wild and wide-ranging multicultural upbringing.
This is a great book for anyone interested in seeing what life can be like for religious missionary families, especially those in the evangelical charismatic stream. But even more so, it's a great book for anyone interested in exploring what it means to be human, to grow out of all the stuff we grew up in to become who we're meant to be, and how fraught and difficult that journey can be for all of us.
p.s. I listened to the audiobook version of this book, which was terrific, as it allowed me to hear the story from the authors' own voices.
As you might suspect, several dark threads run through the narrative, as the authors wrestle with the religious duplicities and outright lies they experienced at the hands of their parents and others they encountered within the religious communities they served, as well the larger questions of identity and purpose and meaning that arise out of such a wild and wide-ranging multicultural upbringing.
This is a great book for anyone interested in seeing what life can be like for religious missionary families, especially those in the evangelical charismatic stream. But even more so, it's a great book for anyone interested in exploring what it means to be human, to grow out of all the stuff we grew up in to become who we're meant to be, and how fraught and difficult that journey can be for all of us.
p.s. I listened to the audiobook version of this book, which was terrific, as it allowed me to hear the story from the authors' own voices.
January 23, 2023
This is my most personal book yet, a four-year group effort with my sister and brother to unravel the secrets, betrayal, and heartache in our family while also wrestling with our own beliefs.
As we hiked, remembered, and wrote things done, we refused to sugarcoat and also refused to overdramatize. If cussing, sexual situations, or personal disclosures would keep the book from being published, so be it! The path to forgiveness and healing must follow the truth. It was time to bring everything into the light.
This is our story, how it happened, the good--and there was lots of it--along with the bad that ticked like a time bomb underneath.
As we hiked, remembered, and wrote things done, we refused to sugarcoat and also refused to overdramatize. If cussing, sexual situations, or personal disclosures would keep the book from being published, so be it! The path to forgiveness and healing must follow the truth. It was time to bring everything into the light.
This is our story, how it happened, the good--and there was lots of it--along with the bad that ticked like a time bomb underneath.
February 12, 2023
I’ve followed Eric Wilson’s career through its ups and downs ever since being hooked fifteen years ago by Field of Blood, the first in his Jerusalem’s Undead trilogy. If it has Eric Wilson’s name on the cover, I read it. Simple as that. It’s been over a year now since I first heard of American Leftovers, a Wilson-sibling memoir that chronicles their unique childhood and reflects on the impact—for good and bad—it has had on their lives. Some of this I already knew. I knew that the Wilsons had spent time in Eastern Europe because their parents smuggled Bibles. I didn’t know that they did this because their dad was fleeing the country from a felony arrest warrant. I knew that their family had been devastated by their father’s infidelity. I didn’t know it was while he was pastoring a large and fast-growing church.
American Leftovers: Surviving Family, Religion, and the American Dream is the story of three siblings as they navigate life as missionary kids with deeply flawed parents who grow up disillusioned and lost because of the trauma their childhood faith left them with. The Wilsons deal with never fitting in, whether as young kids being constantly moved from place to place or as older children finally settling in America but never quite feeling American, then having that settled life blow up once again. It’s incredible to see the Wilsons’ resilience and perseverance through their story and find out how they have come to their current place of peace.
I do, though, have a couple of criticisms. Mainly, the book reads like it is written by three people. Of course, it is written by three people and the book helpfully includes headers so you know who is writing at any given moment. However, I found that this gave the book a very jumpy feel to it. It’s conversational, like I’m sitting across from the Wilson clan and listening to their story but the parts don’t always cohere very well. The book is written chronologically rather than thematically, meaning that certain plot threads feel like they get lost only to resurface unexpectedly. I think that if the book had been developed to focus longer on one voice or theme, the impact and insights of the story might have come across even stronger. A second weakness of the book is its reliance on childhood memories and remaining within the limited perspective of childhood. Particularly in the early parts of the book, when the Wilsons are all very young and their parents are Bible smuggling, there is little detail on what was actually going on because the story’s perspective is that of young children who are just being whisked from place to place. The result is a scattered and piecemeal story that gives hints at a fuller story underneath but never quite delivers.
American Leftovers feels like a book that was written more for the catharsis than anything else. For their own wellbeing, the Wilsons needed to get together and spend time speaking their stories to one another, writing it down, and reliving both the nostalgia and the trauma. I can imagine that the writing process was both extremely difficult and immensely healing. As a reader, you feel almost like you’re intruding into something private at times. But the Wilsons’ story isn’t just for them. Their hope is that, while their story might be more extreme than others, that other people who grew up in Christian fundamentalism and who have since become frustrated or disillusioned with faith would be able to read their story and have hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Eric, Heidi, and Shaun have survived family, religion, and the American Dream and come out the other side bruised and beaten, but not defeated. American Leftovers is a powerful story of hope, healing, and overcoming.
American Leftovers: Surviving Family, Religion, and the American Dream is the story of three siblings as they navigate life as missionary kids with deeply flawed parents who grow up disillusioned and lost because of the trauma their childhood faith left them with. The Wilsons deal with never fitting in, whether as young kids being constantly moved from place to place or as older children finally settling in America but never quite feeling American, then having that settled life blow up once again. It’s incredible to see the Wilsons’ resilience and perseverance through their story and find out how they have come to their current place of peace.
I do, though, have a couple of criticisms. Mainly, the book reads like it is written by three people. Of course, it is written by three people and the book helpfully includes headers so you know who is writing at any given moment. However, I found that this gave the book a very jumpy feel to it. It’s conversational, like I’m sitting across from the Wilson clan and listening to their story but the parts don’t always cohere very well. The book is written chronologically rather than thematically, meaning that certain plot threads feel like they get lost only to resurface unexpectedly. I think that if the book had been developed to focus longer on one voice or theme, the impact and insights of the story might have come across even stronger. A second weakness of the book is its reliance on childhood memories and remaining within the limited perspective of childhood. Particularly in the early parts of the book, when the Wilsons are all very young and their parents are Bible smuggling, there is little detail on what was actually going on because the story’s perspective is that of young children who are just being whisked from place to place. The result is a scattered and piecemeal story that gives hints at a fuller story underneath but never quite delivers.
American Leftovers feels like a book that was written more for the catharsis than anything else. For their own wellbeing, the Wilsons needed to get together and spend time speaking their stories to one another, writing it down, and reliving both the nostalgia and the trauma. I can imagine that the writing process was both extremely difficult and immensely healing. As a reader, you feel almost like you’re intruding into something private at times. But the Wilsons’ story isn’t just for them. Their hope is that, while their story might be more extreme than others, that other people who grew up in Christian fundamentalism and who have since become frustrated or disillusioned with faith would be able to read their story and have hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Eric, Heidi, and Shaun have survived family, religion, and the American Dream and come out the other side bruised and beaten, but not defeated. American Leftovers is a powerful story of hope, healing, and overcoming.
March 22, 2023
I love and admire these three siblings for sharing their hearts and their lives in this great read. So much life poured out in the stories they've told. I highly recommend American Leftovers. Glory to God!
April 6, 2023
This book is honest, raw, and redemptive. It is a fascinating fast read that will help you navigate your own disappointments and disillusionment.
February 16, 2024
This was a difficult book to read. From the first scene it is suspenseful. I was gobsmacked by what this family endured. It takes the reader around the world, into complex and fraught personalities, contorted religion and the lives of three innocent children. And yet, these children are adults and have made peace with their past. The food and thrifty-ness described is a bonus, with a delectable and easy recipe for moussaka.
November 9, 2024
Fascinating story for sure; the only thing I really couldn't get past was the format of having the 3 siblings tell their own parts of the story. It worked in some places, but when they were young it was weird - who could possibly remember that amount of detail about what happened when you were four years old? That made it feel fictionalized rather than autobiographical.
July 18, 2023
Deeply disappointed in what was advertised as an account of surviving family and religion. Kids raised in Pentecostal or evangelical religious families are suffering from much more angst than this honey-coated biography portrays.
December 4, 2023
A great memoire about the highs and lows of having parents in Christian ministry. This memoire is brutally honest and transparent about very hard issues.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews