CIRCUITS & BUMPS

A deft, compelling autobiography of an Everyman.

Thorough, organized and well-researched, Circuits & Bumps qualifies more as autobiography than memoir, heavily weighted though it is toward Condon’s early years. Though his childhood was at times Dickensian–spent in part in an orphanage when his father was incarcerated and his mother hospitalized–the author, an admitted romantic, remembers himself more as Huck Finn than Pip. Blessed with an encyclopedic memory, Condon displays a keen eye for those seminal moments that most require years of expensive therapy to pinpoint. His are receiving his library card, seeing his first mountain and suffering a terrifying run-in with a threatening stranger–all have effects that took decades to reveal themselves fully. Though the author entered training for the Royal Air Force during World War II, fighting ended before he got airborne. Failing to earn his wings, Condon found himself adrift in the gloom of postwar London. Lured by the contrast of Canada’s unfettered and pristine expanses, Condon emigrated. There, he transforms into a virtual Sal Paradise and his narrative into a somewhat less manic, but no less idealistic, Anglo-Canadian On the Road. A stint at a mining camp in the Yukon led the young man to turn his attention to education, a decision that led to his matriculating at the age of 27 at the University of British Columbia. By his early 30s, Condon married his one true love, lost her to breast cancer, become a teacher and begun suffering symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. The author wields some advantage over a contemporary audience due to the sheer exoticism of growing up in 1930s London. However, his magnetic tale is powered as much by the storytelling and language as by the subject matter. There’s comfort in the grace with which he writes about his struggles. A writer with an enviable talent for consistently skilled word choice, Condon crafts a remarkable story out of what, at objective consideration, is a relatively unremarkable life.

Wise and entertaining, this book is hard to put down.