THE LORD'S OYSTERS

by Gilbert Byron ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 20, 1956

A regional piece- the setting the Maryland shore- for a nostalgic portrait of what reads like a dismal childhood that-for this reader- has little to recommend it. One can dimly, very dimly, see shades of Mark Twain, Sherwood Anderson, even Virginia Woolf in the substance and manner. There's doubtful humor in the episode of the vicious little dog that finally meets justice under a calliope; in an inadvertent knocking down of a drawbridge of which the narrator's father was the keeper; in a dirty rhyme which the child repeats without figuring it out. The boy learns his ABC's from a young Negro girl who builds sandcastles with him until she settles down- sans marriage lines- with a boatman, and Mama in a fit of high moral fervor sacks her. Mama, all in all, is a tough customer, always foreseeing the boy in trouble at school, or about to die on a fishing or camping expedition. The father is lazier but more ingratiating; he even thinks the aforesaid dirty rhyme is howlingly funny. A pretty teacher makes a brief appearance, and a dazzling circus lady gives the lad some sound advice on listening to his parents. That about sums it up.

Pub Date: Feb. 20, 1956

ISBN: 0801819598

Page Count: -

Publisher: (A.M.P.) Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1956

Categories: NONFICTION