Customer Reviews

Children of Usher: Growing Up in Los Alamos

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Once you open this book, plan on finishing it in one sitting. It is a facinating collection of stories that will encourage a smile. The book addresses an adolescent of the 70's telling of the life in Los Alamos during the peak of childhood development. Most of the stories will make you laugh, some will make you ponder. A very entertaining read!

My husband and I plan to retire to New Mexico. I am an avid reader of anything about New Mexico. When I came across this book, I couldn't resist. It was waaay different from what I was expecting. This is a collection of stories written about a time in the years before 1970 telling about what it was like to grow up in Los Alamos. I never knew that this city was so much like Oz in the middle of what I have come to think of as a quaint southwestern culture. The author tells some truly fascinating and remarkable stories about a most famous place, but from a unique and funny and sometimes heartwrenching perspective. There were times when I wanted to reach out to that little boy and hug him, and there were times when I wanted to spank him. All in all, I couldn't put it down until I was finished. At first I thought about giving it four stars, because when I finished, I wanted there to be more. But I kept thinking about the book for days, and when a book does that for me, it really deserves five. It's concise, well written, it's like balancing between heaven and hell and it will leave you thinking for days afterwards.

This book was of great interest to me from attending high school in Los Alamos in the late 1970s, and having scientific interests.

There are about 10 anecdotes of adventures of restless high-school age kids, which are priceless. Some show ingenuity, some foolishness, some teach the parents, teacher and police lessons, but none are less than highly entertaining. The author swears they are all true.

A few minor complaints - the strategy of telling each story in the first person, even though many different people were actually involved, is confusing and lessens the believability of the narrative. Also, attempts to teach a lesson with the adventures, as he waxes poetic in the beginning and end, don't have much point. I have trouble connecting the moral dilemmas from building bombs with the deeds and misdeeds. Finally, the theme in the beginning that LA children despair of matching their parents' jobs ring hollow - there are many levels of jobs in town, and anyway next the book extols the extremely clever kids fooling numerous adults.

I recommend this books to anyone who grew up in LA, and also to people interested in the behavior of restless teenagers, more or less rebel young technologists without a cause.

Having grown up in Los Alamos and being in the class of 1970 with Glenn I truly enjoyed this humorous piece of nonfiction. People to this day say, "Wow..growing up in Los Alamos in the '60's must have been fascinating!" But consider, for us it was just home. Having been one of the many to experience the effects of the UFO incident , the mystery behind the blasted rock wall, the learning materials center fiasco (just to name a few) it was enlightening, to say the least, to read of the details of the cause(s).

For anyone who has a deep appreciation for the absurd and is interested in getting a sense of growing up in Los Alamos (or as we sometimes referred to it 'Dodge', as in get out of ...) in the late sixties I highly recommend this book.

A wonderful collection of stories. Some will make you laugh, and some will make you try. It uniquely captures an unusual and fascinating side of childhood and the cold war. What I really want to know is, if these stories are all true, what has the author been doing recently?