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Rating: 
Summary: Bland story
Review: I don't have enough of a statistical universe (the famous "n = ") to make a statement, but oh well, who said i need one? After reading The Ballad of Gussie and Clyde and Home Again, Home Again, i am of the opinion that journalists make poor book writers. It's one thing to write a 1000-word article, but once the assignment (in this case, the book) grows in size, the quality suffers. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that these two books are memoirs, semi-autobiographical, about family members, in summary too close to the heart. I picked up this book with a certain degree of excitement, which grew after i saw the photos. This looked like a very interesting story, life in the Midwest in the early 50's and 60's, the adventures and misfortunes of a normal American family. This is one of my favorite topics, the lives of ordinary people doing ordinary things. Books like this almost feel like manuals for life, a sort of "How-To-Live" guide. But i only had to read a few pages to realize this book was not going to deliver. What stood up right away is that the writing style is quite flat and basic. There is no panache, nothing fancy in the simplistic writing, which detracted from the story. Another thing is that the core of the book, the father-son conflict, is drawn in very vague strokes. What would have made the narrative more forceful is if there had been solid examples of such conflict. I was left with an unfulfilled need to understand how and why things happened. I read about a blowup in the car on the way to school and the occasional spanking because the kids were making too much noise, but that's as specific as it got. What were these incidents so special? After all, we've all experienced them. Why didn't we have a father like the one in the book? What made him stand apart? I guess what i am asking is, why isn't this story written more like a novel? Where's the development, the resolution? Both issues combined, the lack of flair in the writing style and the lack of facts in the story disappointed me.
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