Some writers look at life with their eyes, others with their heart. In this collection of evocative, funny, and moving stories, Peter Damm does both. These are vignettes of growing up in small town, rural Michigan, but also a closely observed portrait of mid-century America. The tone is alternately wry, elegiac, poignant, and humorous, as Damm recalls the joys of fishing on a northern lake, the rigors and confusion of childhood, or feasting on blueberries in autumn. But this isn’t a collection of pretty postcards. Damm’s family experienced difficulty, alcoholism, and loss, and he writes with a survivor’s compassion. The writing is beautiful—spare, direct, lyrical, truthful. These are stories for all the senses, held in place by strands of memory alternately steel and gold.
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“Damm tenderly sketches out the delights and tribulations of a seemingly quiet Midwestern childhood…We hear the questions of a smart, sensitive young man trying to puzzle out the mysteries of sin, sex, and spirit and make sense of the adult world…[with] gentleness and humor.”
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J. Ruth Gendler, author of The Book of Qualities