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Lost In Place: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia
 
 
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Lost In Place: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia (Paperback)

~ (Author) "When I was thirteen years old I saw my first kung fu movie, and before it ended I decided that the life of a wandering..." (more)
Key Phrases: Sensei O'Keefe, New Haven, Chinese Boxing Institute (more...)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
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Price: $11.20 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
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  Hardcover, August 7, 1995 $17.16 $6.95 $0.01
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Customers buy this book with Iron and Silk by Mark Salzman

Lost In Place: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia + Iron and Silk
Price For Both: $21.04

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The author of Iron and Silk looks back to his tortured youth with self-deprecating humor and wistful fondness. The oldest child in a middle-class household in Connecticut, the son of a piano teacher and a social worker, by age six the author was an eccentric with enormous aspirations - none of them ever fulfilled - who stood out not only from his more conventional parents and brother and sister but from everyone else in his suburban neighborhood. A hilarious memoir in the tradition of Russell Baker's Growing Up. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


From Publishers Weekly

Salzman's memoir of his Connecticut childhood tells of his early adolescent devotion to Zen and Kung Fu.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage (May 28, 1996)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0679767789
  • ISBN-13: 978-0679767787
  • Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #152,015 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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More About the Author

Mark Salzman
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Front Cover | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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First Sentence:
When I was thirteen years old I saw my first kung fu movie, and before it ended I decided that the life of a wandering Zen monk was the life for me. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Sensei O'Keefe, New Haven, Chinese Boxing Institute, Bruce Lee, Circle of Fighting, Ch'ing Game, State of Whoa, Hong Kong, Karmann Ghia, World Book, Golden Horde, Holden Young, Michael Dempsey, New York City, Tao Te Ching, The Incident, Tungli Shen, Aldo Parisot
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This book cites 8 books:
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Lost In Place: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia
79% buy the item featured on this page:
Lost In Place: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia 4.4 out of 5 stars (57)
$11.20
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Customer Reviews

57 Reviews
5 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (57 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Hysterically funny look at one boy's search for meaning., April 14, 2001
By LeeAnn Balbirona (Washington state) - See all my reviews
  
I just happened across Salzman's video of "Iron & Silk" (about his experiences teaching English and learning wushu in China) and I was so charmed, I decided to give "Lost in Place" a try. From page one I was laughing out loud. There is much more here than just a boy's quest to be a wandering Zen monk from the age of 13. He also has a sometime career as a cellist, a summer as a pothead and an everlasting struggle with the public school system. The main theme of this book is that basic question: what's the purpose of my life? Salzman explores this in tandem with touching vignettes of his relationship with his implacable father, an amateur astronomer, painter and disenchanted social worker.

As someone who has recently taken up martial arts, I enjoyed the descriptions of Salzman's early training. How I'm glad I didn't go to his school!

The book is a quick, pleasureable read. Even though Salzman describes some dark times in his life, his self-analysis is too interesting to put down. I wish I could recommend this to the under 18 crowd, but due to vivid descriptions of drug use, a lot of musings about sex and a lot of profanity on the part of his kung fu instructor, I'd hesitate to give this book to any but the most mature of teenagers. Highly recommended for parents trying to renew their familiarity with the teenage mind, though!

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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars How peculiar enthusiams can dictate a course of life, April 10, 1999
I started reading Lost In Place one night when I couldn't sleep. I laughed so loud and long I awoke my husband sleeping upstairs who came down to check on why I was, he thought, wailing and weeping. Tears of amusement, certainly. There isn't a wrong note in this memoir. The gloomy father remarked upon in some customer reviews is hardly any gloomier than most fathers raising kids in the 70's and unlike a good many of them, he retained the deep love and respect of his son. I have given it to my own kids (16 and 19) to read, to kids graduating from high school this year. A friend of my sixteen-year-old read it in two days and it was the only nonrequired book she read all year. For those who grew up in the 70's it will strike one kind of chord; for any adolescent it is a shining example of how becoming caught up in an obsession, of training oneself (voluntarily), of learning everything you can about something can turn out to be the most important thing you ever do. Comic books, kung fu, BB guns, decorating teeshirts--these are paths to Yale as surely as being the scholar/athlete held out as exemplars by our high schcols.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A great view into a teenage boy's mind, September 20, 1998
This review is from: Lost in Place:: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia (Hardcover)
We read this for our book group and everyone in the group -- folks from about 50 into their early 70's -- thought it was great. Salzman captures the mind of the teenage boy and presents it in a wonderfully well written story. I had finished it and my wife then kept me awake for two nights with her chuckles as she read it. The mother in the story does not get much press but she is the real hero in Mark's life. She supports each of his youthful plunges into finding his way in life from the little kid in the box playing like a captain on a space mission to his leaving high school a year early after getting himself into Yale before graduating from high school. I am certain that we would have never seen this wonderful book had it not been for his mother and her fierce support for Mark as he worked through life "Absurd in Suburbia."

I have read two of his other books and have just ordered the only one that I have not yet read.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Charming
Highly enjoyable autobiography. The parts about dusting the bald wig to make it seem more realistic for a kung fu master were very David Sedaris-ish. Read more
Published 3 months ago by D. D. Burlin

4.0 out of 5 stars Coming-of-Age in the 70s
Although this humorous memoir should please many readers, it will especially appeal if you grew up in the 70s. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Ken C.

5.0 out of 5 stars The Great Search
I first found this book serendipitously in the library when I was looking for a Biography in the S section. I was not familiar with Mark Salzman or any of his books. Read more
Published 11 months ago by MKM

5.0 out of 5 stars entertaining read
My mother sent me this book for my birthday and I enjoyed every page. Very entertaining, both funny and serious, as well as making some great observations about growing up in... Read more
Published on September 14, 2007 by C. Pike

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite martial arts related autobiography!!!
I have read almost every martial arts autobiography that has been published in the English language. I have put together quite a collection of them from all over the world. Read more
Published on September 6, 2005 by Robert Jacob

5.0 out of 5 stars Laughed out loud
Memoir of Mark Salzman's adolescent years in Connecticut. Outrageously funny in spots, touching in others, and interesting throughout. Read more
Published on January 2, 2005 by Matthew Arnold

4.0 out of 5 stars This book is an absolute gem.
This book is an absolute gem. How often do you come across a martial arts book that is not just well written but genuinely, heartbreakingly funny? Mr. Read more
Published on August 8, 2004 by MR LIAM B KEELEY

4.0 out of 5 stars Boy, can I relate
In addition to a memoir, this book is an effective mediation on what it really means to master something. Read more
Published on May 13, 2004 by Henry Platte

3.0 out of 5 stars Too sentimental and trite
I appreciate the good intentions of the author and I understand that he's not trying to create great literature here. But I found the book overly sentimental and trite. Read more
Published on September 18, 2003

4.0 out of 5 stars Great read for teens
If you like stories about other people's lives and their amusing mishaps this book is for you. Mark Salzman tells the tall of his usual at times hilarious life Imagine growing up... Read more
Published on May 30, 2003 by Spencer Levy

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