The Boys of My Youth edition by Jo Ann Beard Literature Fiction eBooks
Download As PDF : The Boys of My Youth edition by Jo Ann Beard Literature Fiction eBooks 
Rarely does the debut of a new writer garner such attention & acclaim. The excitement began the moment "The Fourth State of Matter," one of the fourteen extraordinary personal narratives in this book, appeared in the pages of the New Yorker. It increased when the author received a prestigious Whiting Foundation Award in November 1997, & it continued as the hardcover edition of The Boys of My Youth sold out its first printing even before publication. The author writes with perfect pitch as she takes us through one woman's life - from childhood to marriage & beyond - & memorably captures the collision of youthful longing & the hard intransigences of time & fate.
The Boys of My Youth edition by Jo Ann Beard Literature Fiction eBooks
"My mother is sewing a button on my father's shirt while he's still wearing it. 'I was having this terrible feeling,' she says, 'that she'd be this forty-year-old woman, going around telling people that we took her d-o-l-l away from her.' She leans down to bite off the thread. My father tests his new button and it works perfectly. 'In three days she won't remember she even knew that d-o-l-l,' he predicts."But of course Beard remembers, and tells, in this 1998 non-linear collection of linked personal essays. They're coming-of-age essays, where growing up is as likely to occur at thirty as at thirteen or three. Each age is rendered perfectly, as are the characters and the 1970s-80s period details of small-town Midwest.
Among the boys of Beard's youth are Hal, that beloved d-o-l-l her mother's oldest sister bullies her mother into throwing away; teenage boys who mostly ignore her at backwoods parties; her father who drinks and disappears for weeks at a time; Eric: boyfriend, husband...; and a school-shooter where Beard works in the University of Iowa physics department. There are girls, too -- aunts and cousins; her older, nemesis sister; her mother who smokes on every page; a lifelong best friend she consults while writing these essays.
I love these people and their settings; I've read Beard's novel IN ZANESVILLE, and the first half feels exactly like these essays. I love her writing and look so forward to more.
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The Boys of My Youth edition by Jo Ann Beard Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
Everyone had been telling me to - I'm naturally resistant to suggestions. But I get it. My apartment is book central, they're piled everywhere and this is one of the top five memoirs I've ever read. Beard has collected a series of essays, each one would stand on it's own (and some have), but together they represent a life - not particularly notable in accomplishment, or witness of disaster (as a matter of fact Beard just missed being part of a spree killing) -- just an intimate portrait of a life, disappointments, risks, and relationships. It is only the essay "Coyote" that seems out of place, everything else flows.
Bulldozing the Baby has always been one of my favorite shorts, but I haven’t read it since college. I decided to buy the book and read it as a mother. I love it even more.
Like a flashback, Jo Ann Beard's collection of short stories takes you back in time. My favorite story is "Cousins" and is about two best-friend cousins. At an outdoor Eric Clapton concert the girls ingest a mild hallucinogen and discover pieces of their childhood in the quilt spread on the ground. One girl feels her halter top is coming off. When she looks at her cousin she is "cupping clouds." Moments later her cousin says, "The clouds are cupping me now," and she wants someone to "Get them off." Beard writes, "A guy on the blanket next to us tries to hand me a joint. I can't take it because I'm holding my chest. He looks at me, looks at Wendell balled up on the ground, and nods knowingly. 'Bummer,' he proclaims."
With an exquisite eye for detail and lots of humor, Jo Ann Beard inspires memories of laughter and friendship and the heartache of youth that is never matched in later life. Upon completion of this book, you will find yourself thanking Jo Ann Beard for taking you back to that magical place in time. "The Boys of My Youth" is worth reading and re-reading and sharing with your best friends.
I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of autobiographical short stories. It was fun to read about someone who grew up in the same era that I did. My favorite was "The Family Hour" which was so reminiscent of the dinner table at my house back in the 60's and 70's that I had to read it aloud to my husband and sister. This collection is not all laughs, however; there are sad,poignant,and even frightening pieces that stay with you well after you put down the book. Beard's topics transcend time and place. In fact, "The Fourth State of Matter" is so timely that I saw a similar event on the news yesterday. If you're looking for a collection of essays worth your while, you've found it in "The Boys of My Youth."
I bought this book recently after reading "The Fourth State of Matter" as part of a graduate writing course in memoir. It was my second reading of the essay, which chronicles Beard's experience of losing several co-workers in a shooting at the University of Iowa. After reading the negative reviews here, I couldn't understand (having at that point only read the one essay)how it could garner the criticism it did. As a student of writing, I look closely at how writers craft their work to see what techniques I can employ in my own writing.
Beard knows her stuff. Her essays are extremely poetic. A scene at her grandfather's funeral includes this observation, "I'm too big to sit on a lap, my legs are stiff, and now my heart has a grandpa in it." Beard uses lyrical structure fluidly in many of these essays. "Cousins" runs two parallel narratives. One of Beard and her cousin, the other of their mothers, who are sisters. The result is a reinforced understanding of the closeness between the women. She is a sensory writer, and employs unusual images that are vivid and unique. In a scene in "Cousins" Beard describes herself in utero as "the size of a cocktail shrimp," in another essay, the rivers are the color of bourbon.
If you are looking for a lurid, sensationalized, book that tells all the dark dirty secrets of a writer as s/he overcomes a particular obstacle, I would look elsewhere. This book does not follow the traditional arc of a coming of age tale. It is not one book length narrative, but 12 separate essays. They are not all as captivating in intensity as "The Fourth State of Matter." But thank goodness life is not always that painful. I admire the alchemy though, of taking a life and rendering its moments and phases as artfully as she has done in this book.
"My mother is sewing a button on my father's shirt while he's still wearing it. 'I was having this terrible feeling,' she says, 'that she'd be this forty-year-old woman, going around telling people that we took her d-o-l-l away from her.' She leans down to bite off the thread. My father tests his new button and it works perfectly. 'In three days she won't remember she even knew that d-o-l-l,' he predicts."
But of course Beard remembers, and tells, in this 1998 non-linear collection of linked personal essays. They're coming-of-age essays, where growing up is as likely to occur at thirty as at thirteen or three. Each age is rendered perfectly, as are the characters and the 1970s-80s period details of small-town Midwest.
Among the boys of Beard's youth are Hal, that beloved d-o-l-l her mother's oldest sister bullies her mother into throwing away; teenage boys who mostly ignore her at backwoods parties; her father who drinks and disappears for weeks at a time; Eric boyfriend, husband...; and a school-shooter where Beard works in the University of Iowa physics department. There are girls, too -- aunts and cousins; her older, nemesis sister; her mother who smokes on every page; a lifelong best friend she consults while writing these essays.
I love these people and their settings; I've read Beard's novel IN ZANESVILLE, and the first half feels exactly like these essays. I love her writing and look so forward to more.
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