Crabcakes: A Memoir [Hardcover]

James Alan McPherson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 14, 1998

The author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning short story collection "Elbow Room" returns with an astonishing memoir--a look within himself at the anguish that estranged him from his own writing and at the redemption he has found in its reclamation Targeted print ads. 4-city author tour Buyer's Choice.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Crabcakes, James Alan McPherson's first book since his Pulitzer Prize-winning short-story collection Elbow Room, is a meditation on many topics. While McPherson figures prominently, the text is laced with recollections of other people, places, and times. Thus the story at the heart of the book--McPherson's decision to sell a Baltimore house he has owned for nearly 20 years, evicting his elderly tenant--is interwoven with reminiscences of a waiter on the Great Northern Railway, Baltimore street scenes, and a bittersweet set of instructions about what to do when stopped by police. Although it's almost impossible to characterize, Crabcakes is richly rewarding.

From Library Journal

McPherson, whose many honors include the Pulitzer Prize (Elbow Room, 1978), is currently a professor at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Spanning two decades, this autobiographical compilation of brief pieces, most reprinted from literary journals, connects his emotional life to his experiences, and his development as a writer. The result is a sort of literate scrapbook of disconnectedly remembered sequences guided by the theme of the search for place and self and anchored in the author's meaningful childhood in Baltimore?home of those famous crab cakes. An African American, McPherson explores the universal conflict of good and evil, racism and common humanity, as he traces his own footsteps, ultimately coming to the realization that the interior landscape is the only terrain worth exploring. This dramatic memoir reaches for the essence of life in search of an epiphany. Highly recommended for literary collections of academic and large public libraries.?Richard K. Burns, Hatboro, Pa.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (January 14, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684834650
• ISBN-13: 978-0684834658
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,290,950 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crabcakes wasn't an easy read, December 1, 1999

By 

steve arntson (Seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crabcakes: A Memoir (Hardcover)

I read Crabcakes almost right when it came out, because Jim McPherson is a writer I greatly admire, and because he was my teacher and friend at U of Iowa while I was there.

I used Crabcakes as a text in my Sophomore English class at U of I, and generally people had a negative reaction. It was slow, plodding, confusing, and over-philosophical. It was also obscure in meaning, place, and time. Some students refused to finish it, and others came to class angry that they couldn't understand it.

When I first read it these were my reactions as well. However, I decided to use the book in class because it eventually came to rest securely with only a handful of works that I didn't enjoy reading: stories I only came to appreciate later. Many of the most engrossing novels I've read don't have the staying power of some of the most difficult, and such has been the case with Crabcakes.

McPherson's often convoluted sense of pacing, and his involved sense of meaning (that spans cultures, continents, and languages) was a pretty big project to get through, but once I was finished I couldn't stop thinking about it for a long time.

This is the best of art, the kind of creative endeavor that puts me in awe--when someone has an intensely personal vision and manages to communicate it with such accuracy that, for a time at least, the world looks different.

I highly recommend this book.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A moving, illuminating memoir from a great American author., January 12, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Enfield, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crabcakes: A Memoir (Hardcover)

James Alan McPherson, the author of two of the greatest short story collections of the postwar era, Hue and Cry (1969) and Elbow Room (1977) ends tewnty years of book silence with a moving, illuminating memoir of his journey from personal isolation to acceptance and understanding of community. We meet some memorable characters, Mrs. Channie Washington, the narrator's tenant, who always enclosed a small affirming note with the rent check, Ira Kemp, the dreamer and former co-worker of McPherson's as a railroad waiter in the early 60's, who became a lawyer and argued a case before the Supreme Court, Howard Morton, McPherson's neighbor, who looks out for him, while carrying for his own invalid son, and several Japanesse friends, who teach the author "religio," neighboring or binding. McPherson's quiet humor, dignity, and clear human insight make this a book of continual surprises, recognition and beauty. In answer to the question who in the world would you most like to have dinner and conversation with, some would say Thomas Jefferson, Einstein or Rembrant. My answer: I'd like to eat crab cakes with McPherson.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful imagery-ricochets from Baltimore to Osaka and back., January 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Crabcakes: A Memoir (Hardcover)

Crabcakes follows an action taken(McPherson's impulsive purchase of a Baltimore rowhouse at auction because he sympathisized with the plight of its tenants) through the unexpected results on his life for years afterwards. His reflections make you pause and consider ripple events in your own life. "Etiquette Necessary for Survival on Secondary Roads" is brilliant.