4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Doesn't matter that it's fiction, April 13, 2005
This review is from: Sister of The Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha - as told to Dr. Ben Reitman (NABAT) (Paperback)
Take it with a grain of salt. It's an interesting look at hoboism, sex, drugs, pimping, anarchy and Depression era Americana. I remember reading this book at the laundromat in Alhambra. It was quite a page turner. It doesn't matter that it's fiction disguised as an autobiography. It's still a fun read.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
fact or fiction? whos cares, poor writing is poor writing., January 14, 2009
Getting through this book is going to take more patience than I am willing to muster. The stories told in Boxcar Bertha have so much more potential than their author lets them realize. The writing is just so awful that it completely smothers the narrative -or network of micro-narratives that make up this book. It is one of the most non-engaging adventure stories I have ever read. The author took license to write a fictional story and pass it off as autobiography, at least they could have made more of an effort to be entertaining.
I keep trying to push through Boxcar Bertha because I feel like it will lend some sort of relevant insight into marginal life in the Depression, but I don't think I can do it.
Not to mention the dubious nature of the male author attempting to portray the voice of a radical woman. What's next, privileged whites writing in the voices of radical blacks? Will that pass as meaningful, authentic work with the publishers of the radical left as well? I hope not.
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15 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A ripoff!, July 22, 2002
This review is from: Sister of The Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha - as told to Dr. Ben Reitman (NABAT) (Paperback)
"Everything I had set out in life to do I had accomplished. I had wanted to
know how it felt to be a hobo, a radical, a prostitute, a thief, a reformer,
a social worker and a revolutionist. Now, I knew."
With an ending like the above, you've gotta bet that the prior 200 pages are
a fun read.
This book is more-or-less the contemporary of that classic 1930's anti-drug
movie "Refer Madness". We encounter dope fiends, perverts, dreamers,
anarchists, abortionists and many others.
I do, so much, love reading about degenerate behavior!
Somewhere in the folds is a statement that Capitalism is evil. "Sure
society has a right to defind itself. Society has the right to send me to
jail if they get the goods on me. But I've got to eat and sleep and my
child has to have his. I don't justify myself. I know I'm wrong. I know my
example is bad. But I'm so short on funds, I have to".
So, I'm reading along. 100 pages. 200 pages. Thinking to myself, hmmm
.... this woman sure had a lot of adventures in her life.
Then ... incredible, annoying, foulness! An afterward is appended to the
text by the publisher.
"In this, the 4th time that Boxcar Bertha has been reissued, we feel obliged
for the first time to make it plain that this is in fact a work of fiction.
This takes nothing away from the book as far as we are concerned."
BALONEY! What the...?!?! I could understand if they'd let the title
stand (after all, we know that the "Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman" is a
novel) but why did they have to leave the binding classification as
"Autobiography"???
I feel so violated. I wouldn't have invested the time if I'd know from the
start that it was fiction. This story is only good if it's true ...
there're a dozen places where I'd have thrown the book down because of
unbelievable-ness if I'd known it were fiction.
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