4 comments about Village of the Small Houses: A Memoir of Sorts.

1. I read Ian Fergusons `biography of sorts` on a recent visit to Canada.The book was un-put-down-able,such well shaped characters,such wonderfully evoked scenery. Full of humour and pathos. When does the movie come out?



2. I loved every page of this book. The writing is excellent and the story flows really well. There are so many moving moments in this book that I shed a tear on a number of occassions. I also laughed my head off quite a bit. What more can one ask of a memoir? Well done Ian!



3. The story here is about growing up in the far north. It begins in the 1950's when a con-artist father, Hank, leaves Edmonton with his pregnant wife and eventually passes himself off at the Indian school as a teacher. Hank settles his family in remote Fort Vermilion. The cast of loveable misfits struggle with the day-to-day harsh reality of being in Canada's third-poorest community. Winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Fiction



4. Written and narrated by author Ian Ferguson, Village Of The Small Houses: A Memoir Of Sorts is an hilarious and highly recommended account of growing up poor in the far north when in 1959, just ahead of the law, Ferguson's con-artist father Hank headed up north in a delapidated Mercury Zephyr with his pregnant wife, Louise. Hank got as far as isolated Fort Vermilion where he passed himself off as a teacher at the "Indian school" and settled his ever-expanding family in a house devoid of plumbing and electricity. The lively recounting of a scrappy childhood, Ferguson interweaves truth, tall-tale exag-geration, and a memorable case of growing up among lovable misfits in this 2 CD, 2 1/2 hour autobiographical account.

5 comments about Box Of Mustaches: The darkly funny, true story of how twin brothers survived their mother's madness.

1. This is a brutally honest, sometimes sad, often absurdly comical account of growing up (or attempting to) amidst constant turmoil and outright insanity. Evans brings you into the harrowing world of his childhood and adolescence. And despite the emotional rawness of the book, it is a surprisingly easy read. His ability to find any morsel of humor even in the most bizarre and dire circumstances has clearly served him well, both in surviving his tumultuous youth and in his work as a comedy writer.



2. There seems to be a fashion for memoirs from authors who had brutal and bizarre upbringings or early life experiences. The problem with many of these, however, is that they are cloying, pretentious, or both. One apt example is "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," which would more accurately be titled "A Mawkish Work of Staggering Pretentiousness." Evans avoids this trap by writing simply and straightforwardly, but with elegance, poignance, and wit. He doesn't wear his travails like a badge of honor or feel the need to inform readers that he is consciously shunning post-modern, self-referential prose and condescending to write a mere traditional memoir. He skips the self-aggrandizing nonsense and just writes a damn funny, touching book.



3. There is no question that the childhood of Stan Evans and his twin brother was by today's standards completely dysfunctional and often abusive. Life with a certifiable mother can never be easy, but the author manages to find humor in even the most heartbreaking situations. Told with mattter of fact candor and plenty of laughs this is one memoir on the dysfunctional childhood that looks for no pity.



4. I hate whiny "woe is me" books written by people who want emotional handouts. Give me an emotionally powerful yet funny journey and that's what you get with "Box of Mustaches". Not only can read about his mom Nutty Nora but other characters like Eldy and the Gas-O-Mat and "Crisco Marie". Mr. Evans writes books like Ray Davies writes songs. Dickens would have given his last beer to write like this.



5. They say a lot of the very best comedy comes out of tragedy, that people laugh so they don't cry. "Box of Moustaches" is a no holds barred revealing biography of a very funny and talented man I worked with on "Talk Soup". Whether he became funny in spite of the difficulties he dealt with growing up with his twin brother in a household with a crazy mother or whether these events shaped him and made him the amusing writer he is today as a way of dealing with trouble is a argument best made over a glass of cognac and cigars. The fact is this book is a very interesting read. Yes, there are many dark moments. But there are also some very funny moments that are exploited to their fullest comic extent. It's not your standard Bobsey Twins novel, that's for sure. No, this story is real. As in real good.

No comments about The Taxidermist's Son.

No comments about Africa, Deep in My Heart.

No comments about Before Modern Conveniences: One Finnish Farm Family 1917-1927.

2 comments about Journey to a New Land: An Oral History.

1. It helped me learn more about Imegation. I would recamend this book to even 4th graders.



2. What a wonderful family history to share with our children and grandchildren! My husband came to America from Italy in the 1950's and I have heard similar stories of his family's voyage to this "New Land" for many years. As we read the book, he talked about his own experiences after leaving his home in Vallecuppa, Italy and arriving in New York as an eleven year old. He, like Elda, lost his father after being here for only one year. His family also struggled to survive. This book covers feelings of coming to a strange land, not knowing the language or customs and how the family adjusted. Please read this book with your children and grandchildren...don't let this important message of survival, struggle, adjustment, hard work and success stop...the story belongs to all of us...it's our heritage.

1 comments about 47 Roses: A Story of Family Secrets and Enduring Love.

1. "44 Dublin Made Me", was the first book written Peter Sheridan. Mr. Sheridan is also a noted playwright, and director of such films as, "My Left Foot" and "The Boxer". When I commented on his first work I felt it settled itself between the sadness that often accompanies Irish Memoirs with the traditional healthy dose of humor. This second book, "47 Roses", is not devoid of humor, but the topic that is shared is almost incompatible with humor, and certainly overwhelms the few lighter moments that are described.

   The number in the title not only describes the flowers that play a role in the book, but much more significantly the number of years a woman from England remained devoted to a man she could never marry. It was not only that the author's father was married that kept them apart, but also, and to a lesser extent, differences that unfortunately remain so prominent between Ireland and England. Intolerance was much stronger in the first half on the 20th Century, so the idea of an English Protestant and an Irish Catholic as husband and wife was dicey, especially for an Irishman whose family history was prominent in the more extreme groups of Ireland. To balance the difficulties, the English side of the family included a former member of The Black And Tans, who will remain notorious for much of Ireland no matter how many years may pass.

   Anna was the wife in Ireland and Doris was the woman in England. Both of these women had a claim on the affections of this man Peter, and he clearly had feelings that ran very deep for both of them. For 30 years Doris was a part of the author's family, through visits and even watching the children when Anna and Peter vacationed. The ultimatum that finally separated Peter and Doris was to last 17 years until his death, and then it would continue with the son trying to piece together the mystery of this extremely unusual relationship that spanned the Irish Sea.

   The feelings of both women and their actions are at times hard to fathom. Why would Doris wait for a man for 47 years, going so far as to convert to Catholicism so as to not be separated after they left their life on this world? This same woman who would come to lay flowers at Peter's grave without having seen him for the better part of 2 decades, and upon arriving in Dublin would walk 10 miles at the age of 75 to pay her respects. This same woman who had one child requested that Peter give her away at her wedding and at the same time invited Anna to attend. The questions and suspicions this request raised, the answers offered, presumptions confirmed or denied.

   This is an interesting story to read, it is also devoid of the clichés that would reasonably be expected. The author seems to be in the greatest pain, not because of what may or may not have happened, but due to his feelings about his conduct as he tries to piece together 47 years of family mystery.

   This is a remarkably personal story, and because it is, often is almost uncomfortable to read. I don't know whether the story could have been related in a different manner, and my perception may be different from others.

5 comments about A Woman of Uncertain Character: The Amorous and Radical Adventures of My Mother Jennie (Who Always Wanted to Be a Respectable Jewish Mom) by H.

1. A terrific story well told. I don't know when I've ever read such a robust and intimate description of the tensions in a relationship between a strong sexy mother and a hormone-soaked adolescent boy. Although the background is exotic - Chicago in the turbulent shoot-first days when cops, criminals and union activists fought in the bloody streets - anyone who has ever dealt with an teenage boy will recognize the minefield of emotions Sigal reveals. Besides drawing a pungent likeness of a remarkable woman - his mother - he makes his own street gang life accessible to the reader when he talks about why he cherishes his lawbreaking friends from the old neighborhood. It's a vanished world today, and yet it's strikingly here and now. Good writing too - loose, easy and graceful. I'm a long-time fan of Clancy Sigal's memoirs-as-novels (GOING AWAY, ZONE OF THE INTERIOR). This is memoir that just happens to read like a novel.



2. This is Clancy Sigal's best book. His work has always been autobiographical from his novel Going Away (the ultimate 'road' book for my generation of politically aware readers who shunned Kerouac 's egowanderings), to Weekend In Dinlock, his account of Yorkshire miners. In his latest, a memoir, Sigal gives us a funny, moving memory of his relationship with his mother - a fantastic character - set in Depression era America. It's an account of an education that is unsentimental and and profoundly moral. There isn't anything like it around. This is a real book of virtues.



3. Clancy Sigal made me fall in love with his mother Jennie in his unsentimental memoir of a sometimes violent and crazy life. She's the mother I wish I had: passionate, irreverent, protective and smart. The pain and love Sigal feels for his mom hits you like a punch in the gut.
   
   Dynamite scenes of young, street-tough Clancy's roller coaster life with his mysterious and powerful mother are punctuated by glimpses of his current relationship with his 10 year old son Joe. Together, they invoke the spirit of Jennie as they visit her grave, throw a baseball around or jog together, and she, in turn, surrounds them with her tough, maternal love. She lives again, through Sigal's gritty and ironic style.
   
   Capone gangsters and cops-on-the-take are a normal part of the lives of this compelling mother-and-child team who, as they travel from city to city, often take false names. Always on the edge of the law, forever skipping out on landlords and creditors, they're a magnificent reminder of what it takes to stay alive in hard times: guts and guile.
   
   This memoir led me to Sigal's other books: Going Away, Weekend in Dinlock, Zone of the Interior (re-released this year - an insanely brilliant semi-fictionalized account of his time with the famous/notorious `anti-psychiatrist' R.D. Laing) and The Secret Defector. Do yourself a favor and discover this provocative author - funny, authentic, political and deeply moving.



4. Clancy Sigal's seeringly honest portrait of his lefty mother, Jennie, and himself brings alive a time now lost forever to Ipods, computers, and cell phones.
   
   Clancy's childhood as the sidekick of a passionate labor organizer mother often working undercover, slipping into town and skulking out when the jig is up is both hair-raising and thrilling. Even when she settles temporarily in Chicago, a secure home life is not an option for his mother, Jennie, and his on-again, off-again father. Jennie's commitment to lifting up the plight of exploited workers while bringing up Clancy is the ultimate juggling act. Lots of dropped balls but a virtuoso performance nevertheless. Clancy was mostly left to his own devices, a street kid whose aspirations were hardly more than rough and tumble fun with his little gang of misfits balanced with an instinct for survival.
   
   Ultimately, Jennie was his salvation even after he left home because she had implanted in him a moral compass more powerful than any microchip that always corrected his course throughout his crazy life journey. He's a lucky boy/man.
   
   This book is a tribute to an extraordinary mother and a rollicking good read at that.



5. This book works on many levels:
   1. OK, if you just want a good read, Clancy tells the story of his growing up with his long suffering mother, Jennie, in a humorous, compelling, self-deprecating and insightful way. He evokes urban life in the poverty-ridden Depression many would have liked to forget, but which, for Clancy, seems to have been the most alive time of his life. But aside from that -
   2. History
   (a) A must have for the Chicago Historical Society library. A detailed description of life in one particular Chicago neighborhood in the 1930's Depression and WWII years. Clancy describes life as a working-class, street kid where the neighborhood and his fellow adolescent (by today's standards fairly harmless) gang members are a whole world and all a guy needs.
   (b) Also a must for students of Jewish American history. An on-the-ground, day-to-day account of what it was like to be a very secular Jewish American kid at the time and how he, his mother, their friends and their world tried to define their Jewishness.
   (c) For political history you get mother, Jennie, and usually absent father, Leo, who are both hard core labor organizers with a commitment forged by the often life or death pre-WWII American labor movement. It is also a reminder of when America had real Socialists and real Communists, who were bigger enemies of each other than of the capitalists.
   3. Sociology/Psychology
   (a) Jennie, a Russian immigrant, ostracised by her Communist, New York family when she ran off with the faithless socialist, Leo. Single mother of an illegitimate child working as a seamstress and covert union organizer to support herself and her child. Clancy thoughtfully observes and analyzes the stresses and social pressures his mother and similar women of the era suffered and how these shaped Jennie's, and their, characters.
   (b) Clancy also tells, again with much self-deprecating humor, the effect all this had on him, not only growing up but how it shaped his future life, and how it is still shaping the next generation, his son. (See also Clancy's novel, Zone of the Interior, based on his experiences with psychiatrist R. D. Laing.)

2 comments about A Taste of the Sweet Apple: A Memoir (Woodford Reserve Series for Kentucky Literature).

1. Jo Anna Holt-Watson is a truly wonderful "story teller." Seldom are readers treated to such captivating tales of childhood imagination, without a hint of false pride. In "A Taste of the Sweet Apple: Memoirs," the author is able to hold our attention by graphically producing a setting in rural central Kentucky, Woodford County, that calls on figments of all of the reader's senses: the farm sounds of the "skid" being pulled by the mule, the vision of the heavy mist over the Bluegrass at dawn, the smell of stables laden with manure, and, of course, the almost indescribable taste of chewing tobacco, when it is first surreptitiously wedged between cheek and gum by a seven year old girl.
   Ultimately, this is a heart warming story of a child's love. Almost too innocently written, Pee Wee Watson has a brilliant flair with words that will actually make you laugh out loud in one instant and become 'teary-eyed' in the next. Her 'Memoirs' of her life on the farm in the '40s recalls a tender relationship with 'the hired help,' whom she brazenly persuades the reader into loving as much as she assures that she probably really did. Her tender feelings toward these simplistic, but ardently faithful 'keepers,' is not wasted on wishy-washy endearments, but rather is skillfully woven into her story, as told in the first person by a genuine tom-boy and sometimes romantic, but always head-strong girl. This is a 'must read' for all who crave a clever yarn by an excellent spinner, ... from whom I predict, ... we will hear again.
   
   -- Thomas S. Markham, Lookout Mountain, GA -- A devotee of Southern literature



2. I have not read such a beautiful book since To Kill A Mockingbird and have not read descriptions of a southern family written as well, or better, since The Ponder Heart. Superb writing.

2 comments about Remembering Childhood in the Middle East: Memoirs from a Century of Change.

1. this is an excellent book and has the memoirs of a large range of individuals from the middle east. Easy to read and understand



2. During a five year assignment in Cairo (1961-1966) as head of the U.S. Embassy cultural and information programs I naturall tried to learn as much as I could about our audiences but I never saw an account of growing up in Egypt or nearby nations until this one. Elizabeth Fernea and her husband have lived in intimate contact with their peoples from the swamps of eastern Iraq to the bazaars of Morocco. She has a gift for describing her surroundings. Here she has assembled the memories of a panoply of individuals from every walk of life from royalty to villager during the momentous changes of the 20th Century.