I WAS LOOKING FOR A STREET

by Charles Willeford ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 23, 1988

From the late, great crime-writer (Miami Blues, New Hope for the Dead, etc.): a brief, plain, starkly effective memoir of Los Angeles childhood in the 1920's and adolescence in the 1930's--as a rail-riding hobo. In the most matter-of-fact prose imaginable, Willeford (1919-1988) describes how his comfortable life in a two-story Topanga Canyon house--with mother Aileen (widowed young), stepfather Joe, Uncle Roy, grandma Mattie--changed dramatically when Aileen died (like Willeford's father) of TB. Eight-year-old Charles spent two years at the McKinley Industrial School for Boys, living for his weekend visits with hat-saleswoman Mattie. (""When a boy is eight or nine years old, and an orphan, and all he has is a grandmother standing between him and his own demise, it is not unreasonable for this boy to think that this old lady of forty-five or -six will die before he sees her again."") Then came two happy years of life with Mattie in an apartment on Figueroa Ave.--ruined by the arrival of assorted relatives (each with a curious life-history) and the draining-away of family resources. So ""I left home and went on the road. I wasn't alone. For the next few years there were thousands of boys my age riding freight trains to nowhere. But no one can ever tell me I didn't have a happy childhood."" He made friends riding trains back and forth across Arizona and Texas; he spent time in a ""transient camp,"" saw one kid lose his foot trying to hop a train, and woke up naked-and-lost after his first disastrous visit to a Mexican brothel. The creepiest episode of all involves a semi-bum who paid young Willeford to hit him--never very hard--with a two-pronged wire whip; the funniest turns on his pal Billy Tyson's lifelong quest for a real cowboy's hat--which culminates in a pool-hall mews room. Small-scale and low-key, more sketch than saga--but with firm details and experience.

Pub Date: Sept. 23, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Countryman

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1988

Categories: NONFICTION