Harry Crews A Childhood: The Biography of a Place is a book I discovered last month. It is a memoir about Crews early childhood. Its not a pretty tale. Indeed, in many ways, Childhood is about surviving, by the skin of his teeth, a hardscrabble, painful childhood in Bacon County Georgia during the Great Depression. In powerful, taut prose he credibly describes near fatal accidents, a bout of polio, domestic violence, fights and flights and escapes. To escape Bacon County he joined the Marines. After his Marine service he took advantage of the GI Bill and studied literature and writing, taught at the University of Florida, and wrote many short stories, memoirs, novels and essays. His childhood and youth shaped the man he became and while he was not, perhaps, always a good man -he was a macho, drank and took drugs, brawled and enjoyed blood sports, philandered and caroused- he wrote like an angel. And hes honest to the bone. Suffice it to say, this book is not for the faint-hearted. But it is spot-on in finding a voice for a small child experiencing life in rural Georgia, full of details of black and white lives led, of a Jewish peddler, of faith-healers, of hell-and-brimstone preachers, of folk medicine, of the kindness, cruelty, and cupidity of neighbors, of the magnetic importance of a home-place. Beyond that he describes the lives of mules, pigs, dogs, cattle, the rigors of picking cotton, the joys of fishing and hunting, the beauty of nature, trees, water, swamps and hills, and he limps and runs through the countryside, breathing deep and swearing and figuring out the secrets of life. He imagines, based on talking to older relatives and neighbors, the lives of his father and mother, grandparents, uncles and aunts. He writes of all this and more in economic yet vivid anecdotes and mesmerizing and exquisite prose. Chapter six is particularly brilliant in its evocation of Bacon County. One of the first grown-up books I read was Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath. I had been primed for the book because both my stepfather and my mother were brought up poor and in desperate straits during the Great Depression. They told me stories of hunger and abandonment, squalor and despair, resistance and cruelty. But their stories ended, no matter how difficult, with inexplicable grace notes. Both could tell tales, tall and otherwise, that vividly evoked spin tales, the past before I was born. Later I would read B. Travens Death Ship [1934], Dos Passos USA Trilogy [1930-1936], Harriet Arnows The Dollmaker [1954] and Billy Holidays Lady Sings the Blues [1956.. All of these tales moved me and fired up my curiosity about the world, about history, and about the craft of story-telling. All of them introduced me to people and places that, otherwise, I could never have imagined. And as Ken Kesey once said, whether the tales happened or not they were true.

Katie Whetley is ten years old when we first meet her and Childhood deals with her life over the next nine years. Even as a fourth-grader Katie has adult responsibilites: after school she is expected to help her father and also care for a younger brother who has special needs. From the beginning we know that Katie has a crush on her neighbor Joey and she feels like she has no friends. A friendship between Katie and Joey deepens over the years but Katie, still hiding her secret crush, must deal with his romantic relationship with her now best friend Lynn.
This is a very short book, only 66 pages long, so there are only brief glimpses of Katie, Joey, and Lynn during their journey to adulthood. I really like Katie and Joey but Lynn's character changes and it is unclear why. Childhood is definitely a teaser for what is ahead in Greg Schaffer's next book, Fatherhood, and I am looking forward to seeing what the future holds for Katie, Joey, and Lynn.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher but a favorable review was not required. These are my own thoughts.

Childhood is the prequel to Greg Schaffer's novel Fatherhood. It helps illustrate how some children are unable to have a "normal" childhood because of circumstances. Childhood tells the story of Katie, her best friend Joey, and her other friend Lynn.

All Katie wants to do is to leave the farm she has grown up on with her father and her brother. In some ways this book seemed very disjointed to me because it jumped from year to year without a continuous flow. Only bits and pieces of Katie's life are explained. As a prequel, it only makes sense to read this book if you are going to read Fatherhood as well. There is some language in the book that I could do without easily. Also, the book touches on the topic of abortion.

Also, I felt the ending was very abrupt but I attribute that to the fact this is only a prequel designed to make you want to read Fatherhood. I have to say I did not like Lynn. I felt she was manipulative and petty. But I recommend checking this book out for yourself.

I received a copy of this book for my fair and honest review.

This book is Great! Everyone should read it. It will make you glad to live in the USA. It's hard to comprehend how people can treat other people.