Memoir | Self-Publishing Review

Review: ’53 on 35th: A “Silent Boomer’s” Recollections by J. Conran Meyer

In ’53 on 35th: A “Silent Boomer’s” Recollections, J. Conran Meyer endearingly recalls a bygone time before technology and social media replaced a child’s reliance on fantasy and invention for fun and entertainment.

1953 was a seminal year for Meyer – at ages 8 and 9, he was powered and defined by his imagination, and that of his 35th Avenue neighborhood gang, including his younger brother, Nick, and his best friend, Billy. With folksy humor, elaborate tales, and obvious affection, Meyer recreates growing up in Sacramento, CA in great detail, complimenting the narration of his childhood experiences with commentary and […]

SPR2022-10-21T16:27:39+02:00October 18th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: J. Conran Meyer, Memoir|

Review: Martini Alley and Other Swashbuckling Adventures of a Certified Klutz by Diane Klutz

Diane Klutz’s Martini Alley and Other Swashbuckling Adventures of a Certified Klutz is a lighthearted diaristic memoir recounting Diane and Steve Klutz’s comical, incredible, almost surreal adventures around the USA, both on land and water.

Both fresh from Vietnam, nurse Diane Mumper and soldier Steve Klutz met at a military camp called Fort Gordon in Georgia in 1971. After a skinny-dipping slipup that almost cost them their positions, and a rumbling escape from a dangerous bar that almost cost them a trip to the hospital, the two unexpectedly fall in love and soon decide to marry.

Though before leaving for […]

SPR2022-11-30T15:34:03+02:00October 10th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Memoir|

Review: Family Matters by Lance Lee

In a memoir that does double duty as a multi-generational history of dysfunction and the effort to define a life shaped by deceptions, Lance Lee unmasks the myths his parents clung to in Family Matters: dreams I couldn’t share and how a dysfunctional family became America’s Darling, The Addams Family.

Lee and his sister, Linda, endured a turbulent childhood controlled by their father David “Gar” Levy, a self-absorbed, generally distant, often emotionally abusive patriarch. A high-powered advertising and television network executive, Gar created the sitcom, “The Addams Family,” which Lee believes Gar infused with his own parents’ dysfunction and […]

SPR2022-10-07T15:00:03+02:00October 6th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: Biography, Lance Lee, Memoir|

Review: Invisible Threads by Margaret Carpenter Arnett

Margaret Carpenter Arnett’s heartfelt memoir, Invisible Threads, is the story of a woman, a mother, and an artist that unfolds in an intimate journalistic style, embedded with dreams, poems, paintings, Bible passages, and I Ching texts – the invisible threads that stitch the artist’s tales together.

Carpenter Arnett’s story begins in 1935 in Southwick, England where she was born, quickly followed by her brother and sisters. Their sheltered childhood in idyllic rural England was soon shaken by WWII, as Carpenter Arnett recalls hiding under the stairs while the Luftwaffe roared in the sky and bombs dropped all around her. […]

SPR2022-10-28T15:42:48+02:00September 28th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Art, Memoir|

Review: One Last Song For My Father by Edwin Fontánez

An elegant elegy for an imperfect man, Edwin Fontánez’s One Last Song For My Father: A Son’s Memoir is a gorgeous blend of alliterative prose, lyrical poetry, and lush metaphoric writing.

Growing up in Puerto Rico, author Fontánez always struggled with his often neglectful and financially irresponsible father, Modesto. A tinsmith metalworker who dropped out of school before the third grade, Modesto enjoyed playing music with friends in his spare time, but his alcoholism left his family in a constant state of impoverishment. Fontánez resented his father’s lack of empathy, particularly for his mother, but his dad did have a […]

Michelle Hogmire2022-10-27T16:56:23+02:00September 23rd, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Biography, Memoir|

Review: Lady Garland Tames Her Dragons and Brings Peace to the Kingdom by Jane Garland

Author Jane Garland welcomes readers into the messy realm of her life in Lady Garland Tames Her Dragons and Brings Peace to the Kingdom, a clever, heartfelt, and deeply revealing memoir. Though pitched as a fairy tale for adults, this metaphor-laden memoir is playful and nakedly honest, but also academically appealing and philosophically rich. Garland can recount a painful anecdote in one breath, and then impartially dissect her relevant reactions and emotions in the next.

As the title implies, Garland has had a great many battles in her past, and now having found something akin to peace, she has […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-10-12T11:18:16+02:00September 19th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Memoir|

Review: Suspected Hippie in Transit by Martin Frumkin

Detailing two months-long journeys across the Middle East and Asia, Suspected Hippie in Transit: Sex, Drugs, Rock ‘n’ Roll and the Search for Higher Consciousness on the International Trail, 1971-1977 (Vol 1) by Martin Frumkin is an eye-opening wander through exotic ideas, people, and experiences in beautiful corners of the world.

Beginning in India and moving west through Nepal and northern Afghanistan, some of the most riveting scenes (and images) come from Frumkin’s time in Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat, though these sections are rather brief, in comparison to his second journey, which began in 1975. In that more extended part […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-10-03T12:42:10+02:00September 14th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Memoir, Travel|

Review: The Reject Bench by James H. Morgan

James H. Morgan pulls back the curtain on his own high school experiences during the early 1960s in his The Reject Bench, a sensitive, authentic, and eye-opening look back. Celebrating the uncertainty of youth, and acknowledging the weight of adulthood, this is a nostalgic and vulnerable read.

Setting the internal tensions of normal teenagers against the external stress of the early 1960s, this six-year memoir is an impressive glimpse into the past, imbued with the honesty of autobiography. From playing catch with his friends and chauffeuring the family to church to SoCal free thinking and the assassination of JFK, […]

John Staughton, Senior Reviewer2022-09-15T11:31:44+02:00August 15th, 2022|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: Memoir|