Robert Dugoni

Fiction 2018 | 428 pages

The year is 1955 and baby Sam Hill has just been born to Madeline and Max Hill. All is going well until Sam opens his eyes.  Brown eyes have a lot of pigment.  Blue eyes have little, and the range between creates green, hazel, gray.  Sam has red eyes.  No one in the medical community has seen this before, and no one knows what to do.

Not surprisingly, red eyes serve as a deterrent to Sam making friends.  He is called "Devil Boy" at school, and is ostracized, isolated, and bullied, especially by the psychopath Daniel Bateman. We follow him as he travels the challenging journey to adulthood, buoyed mostly by his very religious, loving, kind, perceptive mother.

Soon Sam meets Ernie ... a new boy at school, and the only Black.  They become fast friends.  And later he meets Mickie, strong, outspoken, her own woman/girl, who also becomes his friend and eventually his partner in the ophthalmology clinic they open together.  

This coming of age story is very much in the context of Our Lady of Mercy, in Burlingame.  Our Lady of Mercy offers the elementary school Adam goes to, the hospital in which he is born, and the church his mom goes to.  This is particularly poignant for me because I attended Our Lady of Mercy high school in Farmington, Michigan.

All in all, The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell (yes, Sam Hell becomes the nickname of Sam Hill) is a delicious, yummy read.  It is a feel-good book, and is entertains throughout.  I truly reccomend The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell for your reading pleasure.

August 2026