Keeping the Watch: Caretaking The Hidden Value of a Family Heirloom

By Patrick Blau

Indie author, 2022

Genre: Non-Fiction/Memoir

Pages:  345 + Photo Gallery

Via: Author Request

Books are amazing. Sometimes they’re exactly what you expect. Sometimes they surprise you. You can’t always tell what’s inside by looking at the cover. Perusing the book blurb. Or even reading other reviews.

Memoirs can be especially tricky in this regard. Cuz let’s face it, Cupcake. Unless you’re famous, a celebrity, a Big Name or have an uber compelling life story with a transcendent theme that’s gonna resonate with lotsa folks, most people who don’t know you and have never heard of you aren’t gonna care. Sorry, Toots. That’s just the way it is.

Keeping the Watch is one of those. To be clear, Watch isn’t a “bad” book. It’s pretty well written and is a history of the Blau family. It’s based on true historical figures in the author’s ancestry. But we just could not get into it. We tried and tried and tried. Gave it so many second, third, fourth and more chances, we got whiplash.

We put off  reviewing this book for so long, our cerebral hard drive sprouted cobwebs. On the cobwebs. But we finally got down to brass tacks today. So here ya go:

Not Our Thing

Keeping the Watch just wasn’t our cuppa sunshine, if ya know what I mean. Maybe that’s because too many uber mega logging trucks rumbled by like rolling thunder when we were trying to concentrate. Or cuz the weather outside was so fine, staying indoors wasn’t an option.

More than likely, however, it was cuz this memoir lacks a singular POV. It’s not like one person is telling the story of his family history in flashback or memoir mode. The POV bounces around all over the place like a ball in a pinball machine. Kindly pass the Dramamine.

It opens in 1843 Prussia and goes to “Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean,” 2018. That’s a lot of ground to cover. Maybe too much, cuz another MIA in this book is a Eureka! moment(s).

Eureka-less

You know that moment? When an author reaches out, grabs you by the throat, snatches your heart and curls up inside? We found that missing in Watch. It’s a nice family history within a mildly interesting chronology. But does it reach for the heart and connect with anyone outside the fam in a Why should I care?, Eureka! kind of way?

Not really. Or at least, not here. (We won’t be rating this book, in case you’re wondering. Tryin’ to be nice here. No. really. It does happen. Now and then.)

So, if you’re into genealogy and tracing ancestral roots and such, you’ll probably enjoy Keeping the Watch. We just couldn’t keep our eyes open. ‘Sides. Any time we gotta grit our teeth to plow through another chapter, somethin’s gotta give. 

The One With Brains

So one of us – the one with brains – finally said, “Earth to Mom! Earth to Mom! Come in, Mom!”

“Aggh! Arrrgh! Wazzup Kimmi?”

“About this Watch thingy. Snap out of it! Your review queue is a mile long. Your TBR pile is mile high. There’s like, a bazillion gillion other books callin’ your name. So give it up already!”

Smart cookie, that Kimber.