Customer Reviews

Memories from a Sinking Ship: A Novel

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This collection of Barry Gifford's stories from his "Memories from a Sinking Ship," is a perfect introduction to Gifford's work and a must for his many fans. The double CD, excellently produced by Oscar Blucher, has Gifford reading his own work, a treat since we can hear the nuances of tone and timing and the continual dead pan humor straight from the author's mouth. The stories were always alive but now they seem almost to have been made to have been read aloud. Of all of Gifford's books, this is the best. We follow Gifford's alter-ego Roy as he attempts to grow up in a world that Frank Sinatra would have been perfectly at home in- gangsters, ballpayers, blues singers, hip hotels, Chicago, New Orleans, Havana, Miami, Key West, a world of loneliness, violence, and surprising tenderness. ("Say hello to Mr.[i.e. Meyer] Lansky, Roy.") Between driving around the country with his mother as she goes from one boyfriend to another, Roy sometimes attends school, but his education comes mostly from other arenas, movie theaters, hotel lobbies, Wrigley Field, cheap paperbacks and classic novels- Ernie Banks and Ernie Hemingway. Joseph Conrad and Joseph Cotten. In paintings from the middle-ages children are portrayed as miniature adults and Roy is treated this way by the adults in the stories. They confide in him, speak to him like an adult, and are forever leaving him waiting alone in theaters and hotel lobbies or at his grandma's rat infested house, while they go off to their crooked businesses and assignations. Yet somehow we see that Roy is going to make it out of this world, he will grow up on his own, and all these crazy and violent and touching street people will become a rich source of characters and life experiences for him (and perhaps for his stories if, like Gifford, he becomes a writer.) Gifford began by telling Chicago stories and we have reason to be grateful that he has come full circle, for, to paraphrase T.S. Eliot, now he knows the place for the second time. He's an excellent reader as well as writer and all I can say is: Move over Nelson Algren, Barry Gifford is back in town.

Most enjoyable! On a recent road trip, a friend and I listened to the entire 2-CD recording and put many a mile behind us while absorbed in the growing-up experiences of Roy, a kid in 1950s-era Chicago. People are what they are in Roy's world -- no apologies, just the facts, and Roy is watching every move. As the stories take Roy from age five to 17, what he observes and expeirences is sometimes sad; sometimes it's hilarious. It's told in Mr. Gifford's clean and direct style, and in a way that's unsentimental but essentially kind. If, as other reviewers have said, this book repeats material that is in other books (much of it autobiographical, it would seem), this is the one to get. Or maybe it's time to hear them in this context, where each story stands on its own, and at the same time all are linked in tone and chronology to form a single narrative.
Some authors are better than others at reading their own work aloud, and Barry Gifford is one of the good ones. He avoids putting an emotional spin on the material, in keeping with the unjudgmental way the stories are written. Instead, his calm, matter-of-fact tone lets the listener decide how to think about the stories.
The production is seamless. One thing I'm really curious about is the snippets of wonderful music beween the stories. They are most evocative and my friend and I agreed we'd like to hear a compilation of the complete songs. The liner notes say it's all original music from producer Oscar Bucher, so next I'll have to find some of his recordings.

I've been a fan of Barry Gifford's work since I was introduced to the beautiful "Wyoming" and "The Phantom Father" some years back. Both of these had a tone and tenderness I don't come across very often, though I read a lot of new fiction. Gifford's new collection, "Memories from a Sinking Ship", was just released this year, and if you liked the two earlier books, you'll be happy to slip back into Gifford's childhood world of 1940's and 50's America. As far as I know, this is the first time an audiobook of Gifford reading his stories has been released, but it's a great companion to the novel. For people familiar with the stories, it's a real treat to have, and if you're new to them, this is a unique introduction.

Memories from a Sinking Ship
Wyoming
Phantom Father: A Memoir
The Stars Above Veracruz
The Rooster Trapped in the Reptile Room: A Barry Gifford Reader

I was slightly disappointed with this book, as it is really a compendum of Gifford's previous books: "A Good Man To Know," "The Phantom Father." "Wyoming," "The Stars Above Veracruz." There is very little that is actually new here. It's semi-autobiographical memoir about his childhood growing up in the south and mid-west in the absence of his father (who died when he was 12). Having said that, I liked the stories here all the same, as I am an avid Gifford reader. Reading these stories a second (or third time in my case) reminds me what a genius he is.