Bill Bryson was the Thunderbolt Kid, not a real comic book character, but it does show to some extent the influence of comic books on the boys of his generation, or in Iowa, or in fact just him. Even then, I think this book is much less about Bryson than it is about the culture in which he was immersed: 50s middle America. It's a lot like the Shakespeare book in that way.I enjoyed it because even though I'm much younger than he is, I grew up in a semi-rural area that grew much more suburban and "American mall" as I aged. So even though we started out having McDonald's, you still had to get your shoes from one of two stores in the nearby small city, and they knew us when we went in for new school shoes because they had fitted my grandmother and mother before us. Or knowing when Kessler Farm really was a farm and not a municipal soccer field before it became a K-Mart.
Still, we can't get too nostalgic about the old days. I shudder to think of the choices or lack thereof women had in semirural New Hampshire in the 50s, 60s, and even 70s. I'm not sure Bryson is as critical as he could be, either. But being critical isn't that funny, is it? (Of course, his mom worked.)
- The Palace Under the Alps (1985)
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America(1989)The Mother Tongue(1990)- Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe (1991)
Made in America(1994)Notes from a Small Island(1995)A Walk in the Woods(1998)I’m a Stranger Here Myself(1998)In a Sunburned Country(2000)- Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words (2002)
Bill Bryson’s African Diary(2002)- A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003)
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir(2006)Shakerspeare (Eminent Lives)(2007)
1 comment:
I did manage to finish this book on vacation. It was good, but as you say, more about him, not that I disliked it.
Meeting Steve Katz for the first time was very funny. Best pal also read it and was struck giggling at the line, "the best vacation I ever took was the one where I didn't have to stop in Omaha."
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