Join us on a literary world trip!
Add this book to bookshelf
Grey
Write a new comment Default profile 50px
Grey
Subscribe to read the full book or read the first pages for free!
I want to read the book!
All characters reduced
Paterson Boy - My Family and Other Strangers: A Memoir in Twenty-Eight Stories - cover

We are sorry! The publisher (or author) gave us the instruction to take down this book from our catalog. But please don't worry, you still have more than 500,000 other books you can enjoy!

Paterson Boy - My Family and Other Strangers: A Memoir in Twenty-Eight Stories

Jerry Vis

Publisher: Rare Bird Books, A Vireo Book

  • 2
  • 0
  • 0

Summary

Paterson Boy is a memoir told as a series of stories. Sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes ironic, and sometimes filled with heartache, Paterson Boy takes you on a journey that will make you reflect on your own childhood with its many disparate pieces. Collectively they are a rite-of-passage story with all the varied emotions that would suggest, minus the drama of war, incest, or physical abuse.With a fresh, wise voice, Jerry Vis tells a marvelous story of the freedom of childhood, its loss, and search for the path back to oneself. It is also a tale of Paterson, NJ, as it starts to decline, of a neighborhood that is an entire world for an only child born into a blue-collar family just months before the start of WW II. It is a place of family-owned stores and horse-drawn vendor wagons, of aunts and uncles, grandparents, teachers, and friends. Jerry has an adoring mother who provides a decade of loving security and the freedom to explore his boyhood world on his own, and a remote father who comes in and out of focus in Jerry’s life until he dramatically emerges center stage, along with a confusing mix of God, religion, and alcohol.At the same time, other family members scheme, lure, cajole, and bribe Jerry in an attempt to shape him into what each thinks he ought to be, and in an attempt to save him from his father. Influenced by those around him, Jerry must somehow learn to find a way to become himself.
Available since: 12/11/2018.

Other books that might interest you

  • War Songs - cover

    War Songs

    Peter Cole, James Montgomery,...

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Poems of love and battle by Arabia’s legendary warrior From the sixth-century highlands of Najd in the Arabian peninsula, on the eve of the advent of Islam, come the strident cries of a legendary warrior and poet. The black outcast son of an Arab father and an Ethiopian slave mother, 'Antarah ibn Shaddad struggled to win the recognition of his father and tribe. He defied social norms and, despite his outcast status, loyally defended his people.  'Antarah captured his tumultuous life in uncompromising poetry that combines flashes of tenderness with blood-curdling violence. His war songs are testaments to his life-long battle to win the recognition of his people and the hand of 'Ablah, the free-born woman he loved but who was denied him by her family. War Songs presents the poetry attributed to 'Antarah and includes a selection of poems taken from the later Epic of 'Antar, a popular story-cycle that continues to captivate and charm Arab audiences to this day with tales of its hero’s titanic feats of strength and endurance. 'Antarah’s voice resonates here, for the first time in vibrant, contemporary English, intoning its eternal truths: commitment to one’s beliefs, loyalty to kith and kin, and fidelity in love.An English-only edition.
    Show book
  • The Raymond Chandler Papers - Selected Letters and Nonfiction 1909–1959 - cover

    The Raymond Chandler Papers -...

    Raymond Chandler

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Selected letters and nonfiction of one of America’s most beloved writers “reveals the occasionally softer side of the man behind the hard-boiled mysteries” (Library Journal).  The Raymond Chandler Papers brings together the correspondence and other previously uncollected writing of America’s undisputed master of crime fiction and creator of the iconic private eye Philip Marlowe, revealing all aspects of the great artist’s powerful personality and broad intellectual curiosity. Featuring a selection of Chandler’s previously unpublished early writings—including a gripping piece about his combat experiences in World War I—and an abandoned profile of the infamous mobster “Lucky” Luciano, The Raymond Chandler Papers is a must-have for all true fans and an important contribution toward understanding the life and work of the enigmatic man Evelyn Waugh called “the greatest living American novelist.”   “Since this is Chandler’s writing, quotable, funny, even hilarious comments appear on every page.” —Publishers Weekly
    Show book
  • The Girl with Special Shoes - Miracles Don’t Always Look Like You’d Expect - cover

    The Girl with Special Shoes -...

    Hilda Bih Muluh, Joni Eareckson...

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Hilda’s family didn’t know she had muscular dystrophy. They just knew their preschooler was losing her ability to walk. But they were determined to find a cure. Being disabled in Cameroon meant not only obstacles to transport, but visits to diviners and evangelists, threats of sexual assault, discrimination, and a crisis of faith. Despite the hardship Hilda has faced, her family’s unwavering support and God’s unwavering grace have helped her persevere to become a national broadcaster. Her inspiring triumph over adversity will give you hope, no matter how dark your trials. Walk a mile in Hilda’s shoes and learn how:  She lost her mobility and found her purpose.  A gutsy girl broke the glass ceiling of disability.  People saw her broken body, but God saw a worthy vessel.  She and her family searched for healing, but God had other plans.  She didn’t need to stand to be outstanding.  God was on the move when she was stuck.  Her hope overcame hardship.  The Girl with Special Shoes is the witty and heartfelt story of a family’s sacrificial love and a God who refashions pain into purpose.
    Show book
  • Slabbert - Man on a Mission - cover

    Slabbert - Man on a Mission

    Albert Grundlingh

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    Frederik van Zyl Slabbert was a man on a mission, whether as an academic, an opposition politician, a democratic facilitator or a businessman. Perhaps this was a product of his restless, probing intellect, or his early ambition to become a dominee in the Dutch Reformed Church. When he famously led a delegation of leading Afrikaners to Dakar in 1987 to meet the exiled ANC, many saw it as a breakthrough, while others felt he had been taken in. And yet his reputation – for honesty, integrity, wit and courage – still towers above many of his contemporaries. Slabbert was always different.
As an academic turned politician, the charismatic Slabbert brought unusual intellectual rigour to Parliament, transforming the upstart Progressive Federal Party into a force that challenged the National Party government. But disillusioned by the paralysis of formal white politics, and by the growing polarisation of South African society, he resigned in 1986 to explore democratic alternatives to the impasse into which the country had been led under apartheid. Largely side-lined during the democratic transition, he continued to pursue a broad range of initiatives aimed at building democracy, empowering black South Africans and transforming the economy.
Albert Grundlingh's penetrating biographical study offers sharp insights into the thinking and motivation of this most unlikely politician. Concise but wide-ranging, Slabbert: Man on a Mission provides new perspectives on a figure who even today remains something of an enigma.
    Show book
  • Sunshine stories - cover

    Sunshine stories

    Hans Christian Andersen

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    This classic fable from Hans Christian Andersen finds the wind, rain, and sunshine vying for the opportunity to tell a story. It seemed that more often than not, the sunshine rose high enough to capture the attention of those in need of a story. It's up to you to determine if the story was worth the time the rain and wind had to listen. A unique fable from a beloved author.
    Show book
  • The Rescue Artist - A True Story of Art Thieves and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece - cover

    The Rescue Artist - A True Story...

    Edward Dolnick

    • 0
    • 0
    • 0 
    In the predawn hours of a gloomy February day in 1994, two thieves entered the National Gallery in Oslo and made off with one of the world's most famous paintings, Edvard Munch's Scream. It was a brazen crime committed while the whole world was watching the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. Baffled and humiliated, the Norwegian police turned to the one man they believed could help: a half English, half American undercover cop named Charley Hill, the world's greatest art detective.The Rescue Artist is a rollicking narrative that carries readers deep inside the art underworld -- and introduces them to a large and colorful cast of titled aristocrats, intrepid investigators, and thick-necked thugs. But most compelling of all is Charley Hill himself, a complicated mix of brilliance, foolhardiness, and charm whose hunt for a purloined treasure would either cap an illustrious career or be the fiasco that would haunt him forever.
    Show book