CREEK ROAD GANG
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A Review by Kate Lydon
copyright 2010
When I was a child, I loved having that brief glimpse of other people’s lives that riding in the car after dark afforded. My mother, who loved colored antique glass, might remark, “Oh, look at that beautiful cranberry lamp over the kitchen table in that house!” The steady rosy glow through the window, and perhaps a peek at the family group around the table, would kindle warm feelings and set my imagination in motion. I would watch eagerly for the next illuminated window with open curtains, waiting to see what the next family was doing.
Modern American Memoirs gives me similar feelings of anticipation and excitement. The anthology, covering writing from seventy-five years of published work, and edited by Annie Dillard and Cort Conley, presents a captivating collection of work by thirty-five different writers – short pieces, most excerpted from longer works. Twenty-six of the chosen writers are men, nine women. They tell stories of collective as well as individual experience. The diversity of life experience, character, and point of view is delightful. We vicariously feel the warmth and stresses of a variety of times, places and people.
In her introduction to the volume, Annie Dillard suggests, “There is something to be said for writing a memoir early, before life in society makes the writer ordinary by smoothing off character’s rough edges and abolishing interior life.” Accordingly, she and Cort Conley have chosen stories where the characters are untamed and vibrant. The stories resonate with us. She asserts the importance of irony in memoir, and chooses her collection accordingly.
The writing sparkles. In a story of mastering the yoyo taken from his memoir, Stop-Time, Frank Conroy sets us wondering and draws us into the scene along with him: “Is it the mindlessness of childhood that opens up the world? Today nothing happens in a gas station. I’m eager to leave, to get where I’m going, and the station, like some huge paper cut-out, or a Hollywood set, is simply a facade. But at thirteen, sitting with my back against the wall, it was a marvelous place to be.”
Some of the experiences described are startling. For instance, Don Asher in “Shoot the Piano Player” tells of his early work while still a teenage high school student playing the piano at Tiny’s for strippers’ acts: “Strippers, I was learning, appropriate for their art the best, bluest, gutsiest tunes of the day, and that year and a half at Tiny’s was probably the happiest time I’ve ever known.” Other stories can be heartbreaking. Wallace Stegner, in an eloquent excerpt from Wolf Willow, tells of his family’s tough year homesteading: “What we did on the homestead was written in wind. It began as it ended – empty space, grass and sky.”
We travel with writers on familiar roads and ones we’ve never seen, through difficult places and trying times, through togetherness and solitude, meeting old and young, characters both foreign and familiar. This book surprises us. From his memoir Same River Twice, Chris Offutt tells a blazingly colorful but tender story of traveling with a circus, raising tents, performing, caring for animals. The amazing characters he describes are fully human, not caricatures. And when he even apologizes to an ape, it makes some kind of sense.
Many varieties of childhood are shared in Modern American Memoirs. Kate Simon, in a piece taken from her book Bronx Primitive, relates experiences as a four-year-old immigrant child trying to look out for her younger brother. In a passage from her book Memoir of a Modernist’s Daughter, Eleanor Munro weaves the tale of a wise and loving grandfather, his struggle for meaning against loneliness when he comes to live with his son’s family, and the guilt of a granddaughter too busy growing up to delight in her grandfather as she once had. A gripping excerpt from The Autobiography of Malcolm X shows the kindness and guidance which an older family member provided to a bright and disillusioned young man. Having read that book years ago, I found myself wondering if I had appreciated it adequately the first time around, and I decided to reread it. I had similar thoughts prompted by some other pieces which were drawn from books I’d read some time back. I’ve also compiled a substantial list of works new to me that are now on my “To Read” list.
In addition to the writers already mentioned, Harry Crews, James Baldwin, Russell Baker, Richard Wright, Maxine Hong Kingston, Ralph Ellison and over twenty other writers are represented. You’ll probably find familiar names among the contributors. Some, who may be less familiar, are likely to become lifelong friends. This is a book to read, to treasure, and to lend out only to those reading pals who can be trusted to return it! But its characters will stick with you, casting warm, beautiful light, not only their experience, but also on your own.
Modern American Memoirs gives me similar feelings of anticipation and excitement. The anthology, covering writing from seventy-five years of published work, and edited by Annie Dillard and Cort Conley, presents a captivating collection of work by thirty-five different writers – short pieces, most excerpted from longer works. Twenty-six of the chosen writers are men, nine women. They tell stories of collective as well as individual experience. The diversity of life experience, character, and point of view is delightful. We vicariously feel the warmth and stresses of a variety of times, places and people.
In her introduction to the volume, Annie Dillard suggests, “There is something to be said for writing a memoir early, before life in society makes the writer ordinary by smoothing off character’s rough edges and abolishing interior life.” Accordingly, she and Cort Conley have chosen stories where the characters are untamed and vibrant. The stories resonate with us. She asserts the importance of irony in memoir, and chooses her collection accordingly.
The writing sparkles. In a story of mastering the yoyo taken from his memoir, Stop-Time, Frank Conroy sets us wondering and draws us into the scene along with him: “Is it the mindlessness of childhood that opens up the world? Today nothing happens in a gas station. I’m eager to leave, to get where I’m going, and the station, like some huge paper cut-out, or a Hollywood set, is simply a facade. But at thirteen, sitting with my back against the wall, it was a marvelous place to be.”
Some of the experiences described are startling. For instance, Don Asher in “Shoot the Piano Player” tells of his early work while still a teenage high school student playing the piano at Tiny’s for strippers’ acts: “Strippers, I was learning, appropriate for their art the best, bluest, gutsiest tunes of the day, and that year and a half at Tiny’s was probably the happiest time I’ve ever known.” Other stories can be heartbreaking. Wallace Stegner, in an eloquent excerpt from Wolf Willow, tells of his family’s tough year homesteading: “What we did on the homestead was written in wind. It began as it ended – empty space, grass and sky.”
We travel with writers on familiar roads and ones we’ve never seen, through difficult places and trying times, through togetherness and solitude, meeting old and young, characters both foreign and familiar. This book surprises us. From his memoir Same River Twice, Chris Offutt tells a blazingly colorful but tender story of traveling with a circus, raising tents, performing, caring for animals. The amazing characters he describes are fully human, not caricatures. And when he even apologizes to an ape, it makes some kind of sense.
Many varieties of childhood are shared in Modern American Memoirs. Kate Simon, in a piece taken from her book Bronx Primitive, relates experiences as a four-year-old immigrant child trying to look out for her younger brother. In a passage from her book Memoir of a Modernist’s Daughter, Eleanor Munro weaves the tale of a wise and loving grandfather, his struggle for meaning against loneliness when he comes to live with his son’s family, and the guilt of a granddaughter too busy growing up to delight in her grandfather as she once had. A gripping excerpt from The Autobiography of Malcolm X shows the kindness and guidance which an older family member provided to a bright and disillusioned young man. Having read that book years ago, I found myself wondering if I had appreciated it adequately the first time around, and I decided to reread it. I had similar thoughts prompted by some other pieces which were drawn from books I’d read some time back. I’ve also compiled a substantial list of works new to me that are now on my “To Read” list.
In addition to the writers already mentioned, Harry Crews, James Baldwin, Russell Baker, Richard Wright, Maxine Hong Kingston, Ralph Ellison and over twenty other writers are represented. You’ll probably find familiar names among the contributors. Some, who may be less familiar, are likely to become lifelong friends. This is a book to read, to treasure, and to lend out only to those reading pals who can be trusted to return it! But its characters will stick with you, casting warm, beautiful light, not only their experience, but also on your own.
* * *
Biographical Note:
Kate Lydon is founder and editor of Creek Road Gang. She is also a storyteller and writer who at times hires out as
an
adjunct professor. She grew up along the rocky coast of Massachusetts,
but has lived most of her life amid the trees of Pennsylvania.
Daughter of a man who made the best donuts in the world and a woman who
acted out Macbeth and read poetry for her children, Kate is the oldest
of five, and thus is prone to giving advice. However, her husband, two
children, two cats and one dog, independent souls all, pay scant
attention, and so she writes. Kate’s
satirical murder mystery, Off
Center, is now available through Amazon’s Kindle Store. She is currently working on another novel. For more of her writing, see the Author Index for Prose L-Z, the Author Index for Poetry, and Thoughts from the Editor.
Photo by Tom Varley
