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Book Review: Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid February 2, 2007
One thing I like about Bill Bryson is that he operates under a variety of nonfiction genres. He's done books on linguistics, history, science, and travel. In The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid he tackles a memoir, which is a word I can never reliably spell. Bryson (or his editors) can, however, and he uses that ability to write about the childhood and adolescence he spent in Des Moines, Iowa during the 1950s and 60s.
There's a lot of peering through rose colored glasses here, as you'd expect. Bryson gets nostalgic about old fashioned movie theater matinées , classic radio and television shows, and a grocery store with a giant pit full of comic books where care free moms could dump their kids while they selected from the bounty that the post-war economy presented. But, this being Bryson, her periodically swaps the rose-colored specs with those with more cynical filters. I laughed at the dark humor of his first revelation that adults couldn't always relied upon, during which he lay at the foot of a jungle gym with a broken leg while the adult world pretty much ignored him other than to say "You sure like to play down there, don't you?"
And so it's also pretty funny throughout, but not quite as funny as some of his best stuff. I get the feeling that I'd have appreciated the nostalgia and some of the humor better if I had been a product of the same generation as the author, but having grown up in the 80s I had to rely on a lot of indirect knowledge and stereotypes to appreciate his stories about childhood in the 50s. It does make me wish, however, that someone would write a book like this for my generation. Or that if someone has, they'd tell me about it and not disappoint me once I read it. Or, failing that, that I had the talent to write such a memoir. But then, saying that I'm going to write a memoir sounds so pompous that it stops me in my tracks. Maybe Bryson's son will get to it.
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Tags: Bill Bryson, Book Review, Nonfiction
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Posted by shawn on February 4, 2007 5:20 AM:
I loved this book! I had several laugh out loud moments while reading it.
Posted by bethany on February 14, 2007 11:55 PM:
I had about the same reaction to this book. I enjoyed it, and found a lot of the factoid stuff interesting (Bryson's great at making lists and stats interesting, that's for sure). But mainly I thought, "I bet my mom and Uncle Bill would love this book." Let me know if you find the book like this for 80s kids.