I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir, really brought the time period to life for me, even though I was born much later. ( )

Samuel Hynes is Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature Emeritus at Princeton University and the author of several major works of literary criticism, including The Auden Generation, The Edwardian Turn of Mind, and A War Imagined. Hynes's wartime experiences as a Marine corps pilot were the basis for his highly praised memoir Flights of Passage. The Soldier's Tale, his book about soldiers' narratives of the two world wars and Vietnam, won a Robert F. Kennedy Award.

In this memoir, Hynes examines his boyhood up until the point he enters the navy, during World War II. Born in 1924, Hynes's mother died when he was five and his brother, Chuck, seven, and her absence is felt throughout the memoir. Hynes's father, a proud, taciturn mid-western Presbyterian, scrabbles for work during the Depression, roaming the country, living in boardinghouses with his two sons. Hynes says:

Later, when I traced our travels in those hard years on a map, I saw the pattern of my father's desperation: west and then all the way back east, south and the the whole way north, he had drawn his cross on the country. Seven moves in three years. No stop longer than a year. No steady, last job. Living in boardinghouses. Taking his family's charity. And always the two small boys...

TO READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW, PLEASE GO TO:
WWW.INPRAISEOFBOOKS.BLOGSPOT.COM ( )

A classic of midwestern boyhood. I was hooked from line one of this book. Hynes' simple and direct style of writing quickly whisks you back 70-plus years and tells you -shows you - how it was. And it wasn't easy for Sam Hynes either, orphaned at an early age and moving from place to place, being farmed out and coping with a step-mother. But in spite of all this, you also get a sense of the fun of being a boy in the midwest during the depression. Kids don't always know when they're poor; they're too busy learning and experiencing things and trying to get the most out of every day. The sequel to The Growing Seasons is equally good: Flights of Passage. I wish Sam would continue his personal story and tell us what happened after he came home from the war. I do know from talking with him that he was back in the Marines during Korea. There's gotta be another great story in there somewhere. If you're from the midwest and love good storytelling, read this book. Hell, you don't have to be midwestern. It's just darn good writing.

It's D-Day 2021 and I've just read Sam's book again, after a dozen years. Mostly I am overcome with sadness that I can't call him up or email him, or even write a letter, because Sam died nearly two years ago, at 95. But I have this book, signed and inscribed, to the "chronicler of Reed City," and a few of his other books too, all of them excellent. This time I was struck by the curiosity, honesty and humor of the boy Sam in THE GROWING SEASONS. Entering puberty, Sam decides a few basic rules - natural laws - apply -

"A man likes to look at women.
A man wants to see women naked.
A man wants to touch women's bodies."

Of course this was well before the #metoo movement. But if you're a hetero 13 year-old boy, these are indeed natural truths.

And later, in his first year of college, Sam muses -

"It would be fine to write a book ... I don't know the subject of my unwritten book; but I can imagine how it would feel to have written it."

A poignant observation, knowing that Samuel Hynes authored many books in his long, productive life in academia, and was still writing right up until the time of his death. Thank you for all those words, Sam, and for the encouragement and support you gave to me and so many others. Miss you. And this book is a simply wonderful account of boyhood. My very highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the REED CITY BOY memoir trilogy ( )

3744. The Growing Seasons: An American Boyhood Before the War, by Samuel Hynes (read 13 May 2003) This is a prequel to Flights of Passage, read 23 May 2001, which is an account of Hynes' war. It tells of his growing up in Minnesota, and his account is more acidic than Jimmy Carter's or Tom Brokaw's of their growing up years, but Hynes writes so well that he turns a very ordinary boyhood into a poignant account. ( )