Homeless to Homerun
Turning Struggles into Success
Homeless to Homerun is an inspiring memoir that’s complemented by self-help advice.
Glenn M. Stein’s inspirational memoir Homeless to Homerun is about rising above childhood poverty to achieve both professional and personal success.
Stein’s childhood in New York City and then Arkansas was marked by privation. His mother, who was addicted gambling, struggled with money. Often homeless, the two were sometimes forced to ride the subways all night long. They stayed with his sister for an extended period of time and relocated to Arkansas. And even as Stein grew, “the hole kept getting deeper.”
After high school, Stein pursued a career in the radio industry that provided some financial stability. After college, he worked in several fields, including broadcasting, advertising sales, and real estate. He also married and started his family. He took up coaching to inspire others to achieve their own metaphorical “homeruns.”
Told in chronological order with little filtering, this matter-of-fact memoir centers descriptions of Stein’s socioeconomic circumstances in the cities and towns he inhabited throughout. The most significant people in his life—including his mother, his sister Becky, his wife Juliana, and work associates like his accountability partner, Marianne—are just sketched in, though. Their impacts on his emotional development are underexplored.
Further, the book takes a jarring turn toward its ending to cover revelations made through genetic testing regarding Stein’s father, about whom there is little mention throughout the rest of the book. This extraordinary turn of events is covered alongside a list of eighty-one affirmations reflective of a later spiritual awakening as a means of tying up the book’s various threads. Here, the book goes to great lengths to emphasize the idea that a person’s sense of identity should be based on their efforts, beliefs, and achievements, not their parentage.
Following Stein’s personal story is a list of twenty-five concepts, pieces of advice, and platitudes for achieving stability, satisfaction, and success. These include “forgiveness” and “belief,” “Get an education,” and “Sometimes you’ll suck.” Each bit of encouragement is supported by personal examples and hypothetical situations. While reflective of Stein’s later-in-life interest in coaching, they are a somewhat superfluous reiteration of ideas explicated in better detail earlier in the text, adding little to the book’s overall message.
A memoir designed for inspiration and complemented by self-help advice, Homeless to Homerun recalls conquering childhood challenges thanks to personal determination and grit.
Reviewed by
Caroline Goldberg Igra
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
