Customer Reviews

Downriver

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4 star:		(1)
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The courage and sadness in these stories stays with you. Ms. Leiby captured those iconic childhood memories that you never forget. She spoke to my book club, and the stories are indeed based on her own experiences and those of people she knew growing up Downriver.

To say, as one commenter does, that the book misrepresents the Downriver area is not only narcissistic, but it completely misses the point. Sure, Leiby describes some very real locations like Bishop Park in Wyandotte and the Nike missile site at the Riverview Public Library, but she's not writing a travel brochure! It was a delight for me to read about my old childhood hangouts this way, but the plain fact is that the stories transcend the Detroit suburbs and, I am quite certain, will manage to strike a chord with anyone who reads them, be they from Trenton, Tribeca, or Tripoli. On the other hand, if someone who happens to pick up this book begins to think that everyone from Downriver is capable of producing gorgeous, haunting, and darkly funny literature the way Jeanne Leiby is, I'd be most flattered (and very quick to set them straight ;-) ).