Customer Reviews

Getting to Nantucket: An Artist's Journey

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Getting To Nantucket: An Artist's Journey is Kerry Hallam's lively and funny autobiography. Beginning in a frigid industrial town in northern England and ending on a picturesque New England island, Hallam's is a personal success story that engages the total attention of the reader as his perceptive eye and artistic spirit takes us from his dead-end job in London, to an accidental music career on the French Riviera and in German, followed by life as an itinerant artist across the United States. Like his watercolors, Hallam's biographical vignettes are vivid, memorable sketches. Getting To Nantucket treats us to an amusing account of an artist's evolutions; a series of hilarious predicaments involving celebrities, aristocrats, and steely-eyed gendarmes, along with a little light-hearted and insightful social commentary. Getting To Nantucket is greatly enjoyable reading from first page to last.

I read this book because it referred to Nantucket---the place I now call home. What I hadn't anticipated, though, was learning from its pages that much of what makes Nantucket seem so special derives from what all those of us who discover it had to go through in order to arrive here. Mr. Hallam's tale truly is no mere "travelogue", but that of a journey, which both forms and reveals character by the sheer requisite of living through it.

And what a journey he describes! From the bleak, dismal North of England, Mr. Hallam managed to pull himself up by his bootstraps, shake off the dreary prospects of living the life expected of him, and embark on an odyssey of self-discovery through art and music. No matter what the circumstances, Hallam seems never to have lost a sense for what is sensual, what is vibrant, what is most human about the human experience.

Although the context of "Getting to Nantucket" deals with overcoming all of the challenges that daunted him, Hallam's witty narrative is utterly bereft of "doom and gloom". In fact, it is not only amusing, it's often hysterically funny. This is not a book to be read in a public library unless you are prepared to deal with hearing "shush!" repeatedly as you laugh out loud.

I wouldn't recommend "Getting to Nantucket" to my close friends... for the simple reason that I'll probably just get them each a copy. I will, however, have to keep mine in the car---so if I recognize Mr. Hallam from his photo on the dust jacket I'll have it on hand for him to autograph.

great reading!

Anyone who thinks that becoming a "real" artist isn't hard work has never read Kerry Hallam's earnest and funny book, "Getting To Nantucket: An Artist's Journey." He takes us from his youth in northern England's rust belt, through his life as a workaday designer, and then shares his epiphany: the decision to throw caution to the winds, sell everything he owned, and set off to become a successful artist. What inspired me was the fact that no matter what else he had to do to grub a living -- which included singing at restaurants for tips -- Hallam never deserted his first love: painting. This book is a "must read" for every aspiring artist -- and even more importantly, for every artist who, as Hallam often did, feels as though their artistic career has run into a roadblock. Hallam never gave up, and yes, he made it to the artistic "big time." But he never lost his down-to-earth values, his kind heart, or, thank goodness, his wicked British sense of humor.