Gum-Dipped: A Daughter Remembers Rubber Town (Ohio History and Culture (Paperback))

Rating:
Summary: No No No
Review: Depressing, and weird. Not my kind of book. Well written gramatically but as for substance and material it was a bore and a nuisance to read.

Rating:
Summary: a stunning achievement
Review: I was deeply moved by Joyce Dyer's tribute to her father, an expression of love that manages to eschew mere sentimentality.
What is impressive is that Gum-Dipped succeeds on another level entirely. Lots of books claim to be about the sense of place, or urban tissue, or the urban experience (as opposed to form), but not very many deliver on that promise. Gum-Dipped really does convey a sense of what it meant to grow up in Akron during the 1950s and 60s--of what it meant to live in a company town, to count on Harvey Firestone to see you through, and to be betrayed in the end.