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A Long Way from Home: Growing Up in the American Heartland in the Forties and Fifties
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A Long Way from Home: Growing Up in the American Heartland in the Forties and Fifties
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by Tom Brokaw
Sales Rank : 109691
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Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks September 30, 2003
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0375759352
ISBN-13: 978-0375759352
Product Dimensions:
8 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 6.7 ounces
Product Review
In his earlier books, TV news anchor Tom Brokaw has leaned heavily on the experiences of others to remember and define what he calls "the Greatest Generation"--those who came of age during World War II and its aftermath. In A Long Way Home Brokaw turns inward to focus on his own experiences growing up in South Dakota, his early years a broadcaster working in a then-novel medium, and his still-deep connection to the Midwestern people, places, and values that shaped him. In this bluntly effective and homespun memoir, Brokaw argues that, no matter how far one may travel--say, to New York and through five decades of a successful broadcast journalism career--it's possible to remain a true creature of the heartlands. It's a message that is likely to resonate most emphatically with those of Brokaw's generation, though its basic premise can be applied more universally as well. --David Bombeck
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
"For as long as I or anyone in my family can remember, I have been a chatterbox, someone with a verbal facility and an eager attitude about exercising it," writes news anchor Brokaw in this follow-up to An Album of Memories: Personal Histories from the Greatest Generation. The author's tendency to fill space with words comes across loud and clear in these pages, as the book is essentially a soup to nuts oral history of an all-American kid's years growing up in the Midwest. Brokaw was born in 1940 in Webster, S.Dak., and lived in the area for the first 22 years of his life. The son of upstanding farmers who lived by the motto of "waste not, want not," Brokaw had a squeaky-clean childhood and adolescence, ruled by work, sports and family. His memoir reflects that straight-arrowed monotony, with chapters entitled "Games," "Boom Time" and "On the Air." And although the prose and subject matter are largely dry and mundane, Brokaw does occasionally reflect on the bigger picture, recalling, for example, that while he was going to high school basketball games, Rosa Parks's bus boycott was making history hundreds of miles away. His sweet recollections of his early journalism career-he got his start volunteering at a small radio station-will probably interest nostalgic readers more than young journalists. Peppered with photographs of "Mother and Dad helping out at Yankton's Teen Canteen, 1958" and other similar images, this tribute to an idyllic childhood should please Brokaw's loyal fans. Photos.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
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