...is Bill Bryson's sweet memoir of growing up in Des Moines, Iowa in the 1950's. It will resonate with anyone who grew up in the United States in those years, indeed with anyone who lived in that decade. It will seem like science fiction to anyone who did not.
It examines the schizophrenia of the times, the innocence, even naivete of people living in the time paired with some of the great evils like rampant racism, governments playing nuclear chicken, and ham-handed (maybe ham-fisted) CIA involvement in the government of other countries. His description of our suppression of Guatemala's democratically elected government to further the interests of privately-owned United Fruit made my hair stand on end.
So it is a warm and fuzzy story of his early years, quirky family and friends, if you don't mind germs, teen alcoholism and larceny. Kids pretty much did as they pleased, played together unsupervised, loosely governed by their parents and their friends' parents.
The Thunderbolt Kid is young Billy's avatar, complete with super powers, whom he invokes at times of helpless frustration. He doesn't appear very often, just enough to justify the title of the book.
Woven through the story of his youth is the story of the coming of age of our nation from a time when you hid under your desk to prepare for a nuclear strike, a time when automobile ownership and televisions spearheaded an era of rampant consumerism, where ownership was a goal in itself. A time when people trusted their government and worried about alien invaders.
There is plenty of young lustful yearning, the truth about having a paper route (my brothers did this, and I had to sub a few times), and wild adventures. Ultimately, he faces the demise of that life at the end of the decade and the beginning of the next. He had, and I share, mixed feelings about it.
His friend Stephen Katz, is featured prominently in this book. Katz is his hiking partner in his fine book A Walk in the Woods, about hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Bryson has written numberous books, many about travel. Recently, he published an award-winning tome called A Short History of Nearly Everything, which explains many scientific principles and facts that he felt he needed to understand. To me, it sounds reminiscent of Natalie Angier's The Canon. He has been a journalist, written about language, and become very involved in life in Britain, where he lives with his family.
Listen to an NPR interview with Bryson here.
This is absolutely, positively the FUNNIEST book I ever read in my life -- even including all of Bryson's others, which are the funniest ever in my life, and the smartest, most clever -- and Iowa SWEET. If you've spent time in Iowa, you know what I mean. [Full disclosure: I listened to this book, read by the author, which made it even better! Disclosure continued: I admit to 6 winters in Iowa.]
Posted by: LC | September 19, 2007 at 09:54 PM