Memory Links - Hardcover

Van Wert, William F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0820317500 ISBN 13: 9780820317502

Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr, 1995

Synopsis

Van Wert designates every other essay in Memory Links as a "theme" essay. In these essays he affirms the importance of neighborhoods; contemplates homesickness and the "empty nest"; recollects his experiences in Vietnam; remembers how, as father of three small boys, he mined his own youthful experiences for bedtime storytelling; and shows that, in a writer's eye, even phone books, junk mail, and income tax returns can yield rich narrative possibilities.
The writings reveal how even the commonplace in our lives can be multilayered and richly evocative. The book's title essay, for instance, takes the golf course as its setting: it is at once a boyhood hunting ground for fishing worms, a site for a highschool student's romantic reenactment of the sled crash in Ethan Frome, a common ground between a grown son and his aging father, and a refuge from career pressures and the cares of middle age.
Alternating with the theme essays are "state-name" essays, bearing such titles as "Georgia," "Texas," and "Indiana." They are neither travelogues nor profiles of places, but meditations on the changing nature of Van Wert's attachments to people whose lives are rooted in those locales. From the cornfields of a Nebraska visited only through a long-distance phone friendship to the birch-bordered lake of Michigan boyhood summers, Van Wert ranges across memories of his children, parents, in-laws, friends, and through all of them, a younger self.
In the final four essays, the alternating stops. There are two theme essays, back-to-back, each the opposite of the other: homesickness versus Vietnam. They are followed by two state-name essays, "Michigan" and "Indiana," in which the sons are physically present, and a sense of home emerges.

About this title

About the Author

William F. Van Wert is a professor of English at Temple University.

From Library Journal

Van Wert (English, Temple Univ.) alternates between theme and place as he reminisces about the events and localities of his life in these essays. In "Memory Links," he begins by exploring memories and insights about golf, recounting his teenage attempt, like Ethan Frome, one winter night to crash his sled into a tree on a golf course. Another essay, "Texas," recounts a visit to Texas with his best friend and the charm the state held for him. The most poignant account, "Michigan," features a return to his roots, a summer visit to the family cottage in Michigan after the breakup of his marriage left him a single father with three young sons. Here he watches his city-bred boys relax and enjoy the simple fun of fishing, swimming, and playing in the woods. The strength of this book lies in Van Wert's attention to detail and his ability to convey the essence of a place through a few carefully chosen images. In addition, he is able to connect the physical setting to the memories it evokes and to view past experience as a source of energy. Recommended for all libraries.
Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0820317500
• ISBN 13: 9780820317502
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 136