Same Kind of Different As Me (Hall, Moore)

Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman who Bound Them Together
Ron Hall, Denver Moore, Lynn Vincent, 2006
Thomas Nelson
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780849919107

Summary
Meet Denver, a man raised under plantation-style slavery in Louisiana in the 1960s; a man who escaped, hopping a train to wander, homeless, for eighteen years on the streets of Dallas, Texas.

No longer a slave, Denver's life was still hopeless—until God moved. First came a godly woman who prayed, listened, and obeyed. And then came her husband, Ron, an international arts dealer at home in a world of Armani-suited millionaires. And then they all came together.

But slavery takes many forms. Deborah discovers that she has cancer. In the face of possible death, she charges her husband to rescue Denver. Who will be saved, and who will be lost? What is the future for these unlikely three? What is God doing?

Same Kind of Different As Me is the emotional tale of their story: a telling of pain and laughter, doubt and tears, dug out between the bondages of this earth and the free possibility of heaven. No reader or listener will ever forget it. (From the publisher.)

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Authors Bios
Denver Moore grew up on a plantation in Red Parish, Louisiana, where he lived in a shotgun shack as a modern-day slave until he escaped to freedom at the age of thirty. Freedom brought the uneducated and financially destitute Denver the gift of homelessness, which eventually led to ten years in the legendary Angola Prison for armed robbery. After his release, he ended up back on the streets, as a hardened criminal who frequented the Ft. Worth, Texas, Union Gospel Mission.

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Ron Hall grew up in Haltom City, outside Fort Worth, Texas. He attended college, earned an MBA, got married, had kids, became an international art dealer selling million-dollar Picassos, and volunteered to help serve dinner once a week at Ft. Worth's Union Gospel Mission, with his wife Deborah. (Both bios from WittenburgDoor.com)

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Book Reviews
An international art dealer and a modern-day slave from Louisiana become friends after the art dealer is roped into volunteering at a homeless shelter by his saintly wife. Sounds like it's got to be fiction, but that's the true story told in Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore.

"I really wrote the book to honor my wife and honor Denver, who both deserved a place in history," Hall explained. Moore told his half, and Hall wrote it and his half, rewriting the manuscript 14 times before he got up the nerve to take it to agent Lee Hough at Alive Communications.

Co-writer Lynn Vincent was brought in to help craft the story and also to vet the events of the true story. The controversy over author James Frey's embellished memoir cast a long shadow over the book during its preparation. "It made us be much more rigorous than we otherwise would have been," said Greg Daniel, v-p and associate publisher at W. "It looks like we're as clean as we can possibly be."

The authors' profits from the book will go to the Union Gospel Mission in Fort Worth, which now includes the Deborah L. Hall Memorial Chapel. —Marcia Z. Nelson, Religion BookLine
Publishers Weekly

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Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Same Kind of Different As Me:

1. At the beginning of the book, what kind of person is Ron Hall? How would you describe him (how does he describe himself)? Why does he agree to volunteer at the homeless shelter, and what is his initial reaction in doing so?

2. Talk about the trajectory of Denver Moore's life. What events have landed him in the homeless shelter? Discuss the differences between his life and Ron Hall's. What is Denver's world view?

3. Talk about Deborah Hall? What inspires her life? What does she think of Denver Moore?

4. Eventually, Denver and Ron, two men who have lived vastly different lives, become close friends. What do the two see in one another? What draws them together?

5. What are the symbolic implications of the conversation about how white men fish, especially their catch-and-release method? What does that conversation say about each man, and what is the underlying message that Denver is trying to pass onto Ron?

6. What is the meaning of the book's title, "Same Kind of Difference as Me"? What does it refer to?

7. How do both men change by the end of the book? What do they learn from or teach each other?

8. This is a story about how hate and prejudice can be overcome by love and grace. How difficult is that achievement in most of our lives? What can this book teach us?

9. Does this book inspire you? If so, in what ways?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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