The Effects of Knut Hamsun on a Fresno Boy: Recollections and Short Essays

Rating:
Summary: A smorgasbord of images and reflections on social issues
Review: Essayist and poet Soto provides a series of sketches and vignettes In The Effects Of Knut Hamsun On A Fresno Boy which includes the contents of two previous works in addition to five recent essays published in different journals. The result is a smorgasbord of images and reflections on social issues, growing up in California, and moments of Soto's Latino youth.

Rating:
Summary: This is writing
Review: If you missed Gary Soto's short stories the first time around, here's your chance to enjoy a great collection of his older pieces along with some new ones. While Soto makes it look easy, his series of generally two- to three-page recollections are a primer on how to see the things people walk past, overlook or forget, the things right in front of you. From stories pulled straight from his childhood in Fresno and reflections on growing up to the present, Soto's gift is evoking what he's seen and felt and combining it all in honest, vivid prose. In The Effects of Knut Hamsun on a Fresno Boy you will find writing that is sad, funny and sadly funny. It contains insights that are both personal and universal. Soto is not only a teriffic "Chicano writer," but, a teriffic writer without any categorical qualifier.