Category Archives: book reviews

A Carrying Streamlet – –

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Jack jumps in to rescue the Monday book post – –

The Folk River – Fraser Bruce

I should start by saying this is yet another book to which I had some input.

It started with a lengthy series of discussions instigated by Fraser Bruce on FaceBook where he challenged some of the accepted ‘myths’ surrounding the Scottish folk scene of the late 1950s and early 1960s. This led him to do some serious research, including interviewing those folk still around from these days, as well as previous publications – books and magazines.

He then set out on the mammoth task of pulling it all together and then enlisting our mutual friend Pete Heywood to proof, type set and insert lots of pictures.

Most other books covering this subject that I’ve seen tend to be written by observers rather than practitioners so this one is different and wherever Bruce’s experiences overlap mine I can attest that they are accurate. I can be reasonably sure, then, that where he overlaps with other folks’ experiences they are likely accurate as well.

Being married to a writer and published author I have some idea of the work that has gone into this and commend Bruce for taking on this formidable task.

Of course it will be of most interest to the diminishing band of like-minded folk who were around then, but I hope, like Bruce, that it might add to the existing small number of more academic publications about this fascinating time.

Finally – even if I hadn’t been involved I would still recommend this as an excellent window to a time that both mirrored and connected with the similar American folk revival.

The Monday Book: THE SILVER STAR by Jeanette Walls

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Practically a household name by now, Jeanette Walls won acclaim for her memoir The Glass Castle. Her Appalachian family’s dysfunctional story resonated with many.

fiction

The Silver Star is fiction, but you see some of the same character shapes or tropes. Two sisters abandoned by a bi-polar mom head across the country to find refuge with their uncle, who is a reclusive hoarder. They learn a lot of secrets about their respective fathers, and about mom’s history in the family.

But they learn harder lessons as well, about what it means to trust someone in authority and how to cope with self-esteem versus whether the law values you as a human being or not. On the surface the story is quite straightforward, but underneath so much of what isn’t said haunts the reader. It’s that characteristic Walls style: here’s what happened, now you decide what it means.

The ending is perhaps (small spoiler alert) a tiny bit more satisfying than real life sometimes allows. But it’s fiction so we should get SOME grace out of dysfunction. I enjoyed the book, and honestly it bordered on YA fiction. A coming of age story that involves a little more violence than parents might like, but a whole lot less than most actually face. Set before the 2000s, it also has a lovely nostalgia for those who attended school in the ’70s and ’80s. If some of the characters are swiftly drawn, the main ones are people we’ve known, went to school with, look up now and again on Facebook. Two thumbs up.