Reid Buckley wrote the delightful memoir "An American Family" about his largely upper-class Catholic home environment. This is about a Mormon family with not as much material wealth, but with an equally rich legacy passed down from equally courageous and noble parents, grandparents, and earlier forbearers, a legacy of love of God and Country, and of devotion to the institutions of Family and Church. Author Bill Gibbons writes with self-deprecating candor of the joys and vicissitudes of it all. The book could not be more Mormon, nor could it be more American. Gibbons’s unique opportunities give us glimpses into the inner workings of both the U. S. Senate, as well as the financial operations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There’s even a literal private peek into the office of the President of the Church, and we accompany the author and his fellow musicians of the Church’s world-renown Tabernacle Choir on tours, one to Eastern Europe months before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and another to the Holy Land.

Part two of the book reveals strongly held beliefs about the virtues that have made the land of America glow with “Freedom’s Holy Light.” It was compiled for the benefit of his children and grandchildren after the author was diagnosed with a terminal illness, but there is nothing elegiac here. It can only be described as a joyful declaration of faith.