Tim McLaurin (1954–2002)

Tim McLaurin's KEEPER OF THE MOON was first published in 1991. I found it at a library sale last year and just got around to reading it. It might still be sitting on my shelf except that it was in a list of recommended reading in the back of the anthology, MODERN AMERICAN MEMOIRS, a book I've been sampling for a while now.

Although this memoir of a southern boyhood seems to meander a bit at first, I soon became accustomed to McLaurin's episodic and non-linear style in this story of growing up poor on the east side of Fayetteville, North Carolina (post town of Fort Bragg, home of the 82nd Airborne). Born in 1954, McLaurin, his four brothers and a sister, grew up in an era when a good parent -

"... believed strongly in the use of the rod to dispel evil. Or the switch or the mop handle or the palm of the hand - whatever was handy when a child's butt needed smacking."

(Me too. In our house a wooden yardstick was the preferred implement.) In today's world this would be frowned upon, but hey, it worked. McLaurin turned out okay, and so, I think, did I (and my brothers).

McLaurin's parents were hard-working blue-collar types, from a class of folk who considered college out of reach. His dad was also a hard drinker, as were many of the men from that generation in the south, where a man who could hold his liquor was a man to be admired. This is a completely frank and unvarnished look at life lived on the edge of poverty and respectability, with stories of cock-fighting, dog-fighting, coon hunting and, of course, drinking - plenty of it. The book's title comes from a brief time of celebrity for young Tim when he is given an expensive telescope by an uncle returned from a tour in the army, and uses it to study the moon and stars, and read up on astronomy. Then he lets friends and neighbors have a peek at the night skies for a dime a pop.

He tells of playing in the nearby woods and river bottoms with his brothers and friends, some black, some white. He absorbs the racial feelings of his town, but unwillingly. High school brings the excitement of discovering the opposite sex, some success on the basketball court in a southern state crazy for basketball. Then a short stint in the Marine Corps, just missing the Vietnam conflict, followed by a tour with the Peace Corps in Tunisia. You learn of an early failed marriage, the drinking and drugs, both by the author and by relatives and friends. And a number of early deaths among his crowd. The one constant throughout the narrative is the sometimes troubled relationship with his hard-drinking father, and then the grief at his father's early death of lung cancer. I was reminded of the books of Rick Bragg and Pat Conroy as I read McLaurin's story. And then there is Tim's own battle with cancer when he is stricken with a deadly multiple myeloma at the age of 36. His detailed descriptions of the chemo, radiation and bone marrow transplant (from his brother) is moving and chilling. But the process helps to heal the rift between the two brothers who had shared a bed for nearly fourteen years. Warning: this part of the book may cause you to weep.

This book was published just a year after the author had recovered from cancer. McLaurin was obviously thankful for his cure and intended to make the most of his life. And he did, writing more books and securing a teaching job at NC State U. Sadly, eleven years later, in 2002, he succumbed to esophageal cancer.

KEEPER OF THE MOON is a damn good book. It's too bad it's not more widely known and read, because it should be. Highly recommended.… (plus d'informations)