H. Colthup (Kent,UK) “honest and challenging”

This is a fascinating collection of essays that at times is almost too intimately honest; as if you’ve come across someone’s private diaries by accident. Mathias Freese does not hold back with his thoughts and insights as he looks back over his life and experiences. Often I was reminded of Kurt Vonnegut’s writing, and in fact one essay, ‘Personal Posturings: Yahoos as Bloggers’ ends with Vonnegut’s famous line, “And so it goes.” Throughout the collection we are reminded that Freese’s background is both as an English teacher and as a psychotherapist – all provide material for him to draw upon and sometimes rail against. An accomplished short story writer, Freese’s ‘Seawall’ essays flirt with storytelling as we learn more about his family. His Grandma Fanny jumps right off the page and left me wanting to know more about this woman, her ability to speak several languages, her exotic youth when she was a ‘Rubenesque fleshpot’, and her final ‘bag lady’ existence. Uncle Seymour, however, scared me more than a little, particularly as he almost drowned Freese as a child and left him unable to swim, his sense of trust ‘forever damaged’. This collection is not an entirely easy read – that is not to say it isn’t well written, quite the reverse. However, Freese does not shy away from confronting the reader with uncomfortable truths; regardless of whether the reader agrees or not, Freese does not hold back. I was reminded of conversations with my elderly father-in-law whose politics and attitudes I don’t entirely share but I still like the man. I didn’t agree with a great deal of Freese’s opinions, but my word, it was refreshing to read. These days editorial policies and public sensibilities (certainly here in the UK) necessitate a certain amount of bland inoffensiveness. The internet, supposedly the last bastion of true free speech gives us opinion beaten down by political correctness or stamped on by nasty minded trolls. Freese, within the pages of ‘This Mobius Strip of Ifs’ allows his honest opinions space to be explored and supported by his life experience and his wide reading; no polite editorial, no safe vanilla sound-bites, and most importantly by being a good old fashioned printed book there’s no opportunity for a drive-by trolling. Want to disagree and argue the toss with Mr Freese’s thoughts? Then do it the old fashioned way by reading the book and get into a heated debate face to face with someone. This is a book I shall be sharing with my reader friends not because I loved it, I didn’t, but it challenged my ideas and beliefs in a way that a book hasn’t for a long time.