A compelling family drama that takes place over twenty years with many hardships.

What I didn't like about the book was the long drawn out stretches of academia politics and I skipped several pages to get to the story.

It is evident that the author has inside knowledge about college life, how it works and the problems they face. But for me not interested in the politics side was more intrigued about the life of this family. This made the story a very slow read and I believe only people interested in college politics will appreciate it even more.

It is very well written, with believable characters to make it a great storyline.

What has drawn me to the book was the book cover and name. Throughout the story, it became clear why the author had chosen the name, which was a sweet reminder of how closely connected everything is.

Adam's memoir served at the end as a synopsis of the book. Giving you the shorten version I found intriguing. Taking place between America, Paris, Russia and Africa, this is an extremely intensive book with clear insight about the political views of each character and how this changed their lives. It influenced their decisions and changed their course in ways they didn't foresee. ( )

I took this book from a BookBub offer as it was free - Sorry Dr Fuller! Whilst it may not have been my first choice for a book purchase, I like to have a substantial library on my Kindle as a backup when paper books are just too heavy or large to lug around. This being said, and unlike many other reviewers on Amazon, I really enjoyed this book. I know it helps that I am of an academic bent and I could relate to the various pressures put upon staff and students at American universities especially in the late 1960s when Vietnam AND Black Power AND Feminism were converging upon campuses it would have been a heady and difficult time.

The book takes the reader through three decades, the 1970s, 1990s, and 2120s. It is a love story and a polemic. In the first third, the main character, having become President of a non-Ivy League university does his best to improve the balance of African Americans and Women in both academic staff and students.It is at this time that the reader is introduced to the concept of Nobodies and Somebodies and how one can cycle between being a somebody who has the power to help others and make changes and then settling into being a nobody whilst others take over that workload or you turn off to allow yourself to rejuvenate. He has a wife who is attempting to gain tenure at NYU and she only comes to his university occasionally. Eventually they drift apart and he finds that the friendship he has with an African American student develops into love. This of course is illicit, not because of the law of the land, but rather the law of the university that students and academics can not enter sexual relationships no matter whether they are consensual . After some 4 years he leaves the university having felt stifled by the pressures put upon him by donors. It was always clear to him that his role as President was to be a fundraiser rather than to be a game changer, and that sits poorly upon his morals.
Jump 20 years on and he is a diplomat in Moscow with his daughter who is studying at the Bolshoi. He receives an offer of an honorary Doctorate from his former college the president of which is his former African American lover - the 1990s and a black woman university president of a non-Ivy League must have been remarkable but not unheard of. He is divorced from his wife, she is divorcing her husband, they each have a child she a son - who turns out to be his. This third of the book is the relationship between the son and daughter, before and after they discover they are half siblings. Yes it is a traumatic and shattering discovery and it affects their future lives and relationships, she becomes a ballerina world renowned, he struggles to find meaning in a life where he sees injustice and imbalances of wealth, health, education, security around him. He tags along with a female doctor from Medcines Sans Frontiers MSF, taking photos to reveal the trauma of Ethiopia, Rwanda, Pakistan and other crisis zones. His work becomes well known, and he begins to develop a concept of the right to Dignity as he shows through photography evidence of dignity and indignity in the same locations where MSF work. He moves from the university where he had a basketball scholarship with mathematics, to another university where he studies photojournalism. At the end of this third of the book we see both the son and the daughter settled in successful lives, their father married to the African American woman and a sense of stability has been achieved.

The third and final section of the book takes us into the future where the son is writing his memoir. He has been the Speaker of the house but, via the death of the Vice President , and then almost immediately the death of the President, he becomes the President of the USA. His best mate from Uni is in the Senate, and he is chosen to become Vice President. Knowing that he may have only one term as President, he brings into action his long planned concept of Dignity worldwide, replacing the United Nations with regional councils and aiming for dignity from the individual grassroots level via states, nations and groups of nations. It is a concept developed upon the original Nobodies and Somebodies, with 21st century positivism injected arguing for a need to change the world before there is no world to change.
There have been plenty of reviewers who have labelled this novel as poorly written - it isn't there are hardly any editing flaws, and it explains itself very well. Other reviewers complain that it is a undisguised medium to expose the reader to the concepts Dr Fuller has written on in several of his non-fiction books. I am sure that those reviewers would have had issues with "Who moved my cheese" and "Fish!" both concepts wrapped in easy to read and comprehend HR books. Dr Fuller's novel is far above the comprehension level of "Who moved my cheese" but I am sure its aim is to present complex theories in a simpler manner. I will know more when I read more of his work. There is a lot of Dr Fuller in this novel, and one reviewer who had been at the college Dr Fuller had been President of says that in the first third many characters were identifiable with those who inhabited the college at that time. Personally I likes the reference to the toy train heiress but that struck one of my personal passions. However, putting your heart and soul into a novel to explain your beliefs for a better world is not unusual and the world has been changed by the publication of some novels over the centuries - Uncle Tom's Cabin is one American example.

I understood this book, enjoyed it and did not see it as improbable - If you look at the life of Dr Fuller you will see the range of people he has associated with and been a consultant for. Things happen to connect people to people, to fall into place and to fall over suddenly, love is found in unexpected places some of them taboo and others impossible to consummate - This is life, not mine, maybe not yours, but it happens.

This book is not for everyone, and I am glad that Dr Fuller has written a children's book with his wife which simplifies the Dignity concept even further to make it even more accessible for the reader. ( )