Raising Gentle Men: Lives at the Orphanage Edge

These are the stories of a young Boston College graduate who spent two years in Jamaica before law school as a part of BC's International Volunteer Program (IVP). He was assigned to teach English at St. George's College, a Jesuit High School near downtown Kingston. While at St. George's, he helped run the school's outreach program (even poor students in developing nations need to learn to serve others), which led him to the Alpha Boy's School a few blocks away. The author spent the first year volunteering at the Alpha Boy's School, an orphanage run by the Sisters of Mercy, and moved in during his second year.I also studied at Boston College, but I never served in the IVP. I've also never been to Kingston, nor inside an orphanage, but I felt like I was there when I read this book. Although Mr. Sullivan lived at Alpha, he was not a classroom teacher, a nun, or a student, so the first person narrative helps bridge the gap between the community within the walls and the readers outside.This book is not so much one big story as much as it's a collection of smaller stories about the boys at Alpha and the Sisters of Mercy which are all tied together beautifully. Any recent college graduate entering a service program may have dreams of doing one big thing, but tying together a lot of smaller moments can also have a tremendous impact on the lives of others.While this book does feature several Roman Catholic and Jesuit institutions, it is not preachy and I would recommend it to people of any faith. I wish this book had been around when I was an undergrad at BC.

I was so moved emotionally and spiritually by Raising Gentle Men that it inspired me to want to write this review and share the experience with friends and colleagues by purchasing the book for them.The author takes time to develop the main characters and succeeds in engaging the reader in each vignette with eloquent and descriptive language. Jay brings you along on his journey almost as if the reader is his trusted companion and confidante. The story was thought provoking and it held my interest from chapter to chapter.As with any well written story, it made me feel as though I didn't want the book to end and at the same time my wanting to know what happened to the characters after all of these years especially since it is based on true events.As I read through it, I imagined it being made into a movie. But the movie usually never compares to the intimacy between a book and its reader.I laughed, cried and felt anticipation as the story unfolded. It is a beautiful book and I recommend it highly.

This is an excellent book. It takes what seems like, and probably is, an intractable, long term social and economic problem and shows how one person can make a difference in large and small ways. It does a terrific job showing how one person can have a range of effects, varying by the individual touched. It describes some instances in which lives that are touched are changed much for the better. However it does not suggest that all problems are solvable or that hard work can always succeed, or that earnest people trying to do good never make mistakes: some of his stories have happy endings, but not all of them. The book also gives the readers the freedom to make their own judgments on the issues revealed and the solutions proposed. Thankfully, the author’s purpose is not at all to brag about his effort to do good, or to recruit volunteers to work in orphanages; his purpose instead is to raise good questions and put them into very realistic, human contexts, without cliches or formulaic, orthodox conclusions. This book would be good in a young persons' book group or a classroom because it invites a wide range of interpretation.

Jay Sullivan masterfully presented to the world the life and times of dedicated and gracious volunteers and the many lives they helped to postively alter. I was born in Jamaica and spent most of my childhood there before moving to the United States so I was vaguely aware of the Alpha Boys' Home. However, Jay's book was able to transplant me back into the times (with accurate descriptions) and moments he wrote on and give me a more personal and upfront view about the incredible work of the school and those who help to make it happen and the great impact it has had on the community. I was inspired, so much so that I am now looking to get more involved with the school and its volunteer effort. This is a very timely novel and Jay does a great job to showcase how the smallest act of kindness can have a major impact on the lives of others. I would recommend this book to everyone.

Sullivan's account of his two years in the mid-80s as a volunteer at an orphanage in Kingston is filled with the expected -- descriptions of the young residents, the nuns who run the place, and others, and their sometimes remarkable, sometimes common-place day-to-day experiences -- interspersed with the more unexpected -- Sullivan's introspective examination of his own motives and goals. In addition to providing a fascinating inside view of the institution and its mostly-resilient residents, he offers a careful analysis of what brought him to Jamaica and to the orphanage in the first place, what he hoped to accomplish there, and how he eventually came to accept his place and to appreciate the value in doing what he could during his time there. The book is captivating in the best sense: there is no way to finish it without wanting to find a way to support the nuns and their ongoing work at the orphanage.