Category: 60’s
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Memoirs offer a new approach to suffering
When Siddhartha first encountered suffering he ran away to the jungle. When I first encountered suffering, I went into a rage, determined to fix the world. Instead of changing the world, Iury, fell apart. That’s when I ran away, but not to the jungle. I ended up living in a garage in Berkeley, one step…
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Coming of Age in the Shadow of Vietnam
A little girl’s view of Saigon, from inside the home of a top military attache, bursts with insight into the delicate balance that holds civilization together, shows how small actions can create large results, and how coming of age in a crazy world often requires a bit of craziness in response. The whole thing would…
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How traveling helped them find themselves
In his memoir, Finding Myself in Borneo, McKee generously offers a front row seat to his adventure in an interesting part of the world. But I want more from a memoir than just exotic sights. I expect to learn about the author’s inner journey as well. McKee’s memoir satisfies that desire by showing me how…
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Is your memoir Boomer Lit?
Whatever your experience was in the sixties, whether a soldier, a hippie, a housewife, a mother, a resident of a commune, cult, or clan, you had a personal, unique experience that is trapped in your mind until you give it voice. And memoirs give you that voice.
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Two-Memoir Series about Youth, Midlife, and Responsibility
Within the container of the road trip, Berner is able to ponder the rebelliousness of his youth, and place those youthful impulses within the context of his mid-life crisis. With each passing mile, he moves farther and farther into his commitment to his children. Instead of renewing his commitment to self-indulgence, the way mid-life crises…
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Two Midlife Memoirs: A Sequel Shows Command of Structure
Jack Kerouac’s book, On the Road, published in 1957, foreshadowed the counterculture of the 1960s and inspired many young men to hit the road and find their truths somewhere other than home. In Any Road Will Take You There, David Berner tries to pass this literary inspiration to his sons. So the outer story is…
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Writing a Memoir Penetrates the Fog of Memory
As a slow, methodical memoir writer, I find incidents buried under years of forgetting. Like an archeologist, I extricate them from the rubble of details and wonder what value each artifact might offer. I place them into the context of the book of my life, where they acquire deeper meaning.
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A Book of Short Stories Expands My Memoir Collection
By juxtaposing this variety of perspectives, the editors have created a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. This anthology is a compelling, satisfying reading experience that sets a high bar for the emerging genre of life story collections.
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The Sixties Had Many Struggles. Here’s One I Missed.
During the 60s, women needed to confront the Man in a very different way than I did. They had to confront him when they asked their fathers what subject they were allowed to major in. They had to confront him when they asked for permission to leave their dorms at night or which job they…
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