a review of blue like jazz

Book Review: Blue Like Jazz: Non-Religious Thoughts On Christian Spirituality

By: Jason Tatum

Donald Miller was not an amateur writer before he got Blue Like Jazz published in 2003. While Miller has been published before, the success of his first work, Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance, was quite limited. In his effortless and beautiful prose, Donald Miller seems to breathe out 256 pages of humor and clever insight without trying in his sophomore effort, Blue Like Jazz.
In this book, Donald Miller expresses his views on Christianity within a modern context that is not cheesy, condemning or even conservatively Republican. His insights are not actually very new. Miller does not come off as the latest Christian philosopher. Rather, he takes tried and true ideas and dusts them off, breathing new life into the practice of religion.
Donald Miller’s style is best described as whimsical and honest about his past and the experiences that he has gone through. This quality is an aspect of religious writing that is missed across all denominations and creeds.
Miller has explained that he only expected to sell about 5,000 copies of Blue Like Jazz and wrote from a belief that this would be something that no one except close friends would actually read. He could not have been more wrong. Miller’s book has spread through grassroots word of mouth publicity and three years later has worked its way onto the New York Times’ Best Seller List. An impressive feat for a man who claims to have had to pray for rent money to show up every month until Blue Like Jazz began to sell.
Miller’s style in this book is much like a memoir. He candidly recounts the days where we nearly walked away from Christianity and his travels back from that brink. His tale is a journey similar to many young Americans that grow up in church. Miller alludes to a political church where people’s beliefs to not come from their own convictions but from what is passed down to them through the pressure of church leaders and parents. Miller’s book represents a journey out of the cookie cutter world of suburban Houston and into a progressive, open-minded view on the world living in Portland, Oregon.
Miller’s style is reminiscent of many liberal thinking Christian spiritualist that has come before him. His style rings Anne LaMont, Annie Dillard and Fredrick Beauchner. Following the advice of Beachner, Miller succeeds in his writing by “opening a vein”. By this candid, honest, and intellectual angle, we can expect to see much more success from Donald Miller.