The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson

Because I am such a fan of Bill Bryson, I have no idea why it took me so long to set about reading The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. This is an affectionate memoir of the author's childhood in the 1950s and '60s in Des Moines, Iowa. Both his parents worked for the newspaper there - his dad was a sports writer and his mom wrote a lifestyle column - so writing is in his genes.

He tells the tale with much humor - and I suspect just a touch or maybe a wallop of exaggeration - about his boyhood escapades and adventures - many of which did not resonate with me. For example, unlike him, I did not spend three summers wanting to go to the live strip show at the state fair. Nor did I ever imagine myself as coming from another planet. Nor did I have friends who experimented with gunpowder and homemade cannons.

What did resonate were his descriptions of what was going on in those decades and the amount of rapid change that was seen in America: color television; the Red Scare and the McCarthy hearings; learning to read with Dick and Jane books; morning and afternoon editions of the local newspaper; Sputnik and the space race; the polio epidemic; the Cuban missile crisis; major league baseball games played in the afternoon; and, of course, the threat of nuclear war.

He also recounts with sadness the eventual loss of downtown department stores, locally owned businesses and restaurants, small family farms, glorious movie theaters with bigger-than-life screens, and small amusement parks.

I have seen many of those same changes in my own hometown. His description of one of Des Moines's great 'ocean liner of a department store' brought to mind visits with my mother to Stewart's Department Store in downtown Louisville. In those days, we always dressed up to go shopping downtown. Stewart's boasted The Orchid Room, a restaurant on the sixth floor where we would enjoy a lunch of fresh fruit salad accompanied by little finger sandwiches of date-nut bread and cream cheese. 

One of the spectacular features of the store was that every spring shoppers were greeted by a woman in a swing that hung from the tall ceiling right as they entered through the revolving glass door. Flowers twined around the ropes of the swing and the young woman always wore a pastel pink or blue or green full-skirted dress. Believe me, the sight was a marvel to behold. 

You won't find such elegance in Target or Walmart!

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After reading Alice Hoffman's Practical Magic, I rented the movie to see just how Hollywood handled the story. The film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as the sisters Sally and Gillian did manage to hit most of the highlights of the novel. My favorite characters were The Aunts played by Stockard Channing and Diane Wiest. Both woman had the most enchanting outfits (well, they were witches after all) and terrific hats. And as often happens, the movie's ending was very different from the book's. All in all, though, it was pleasant to watch.

What have you been reading or watching this week?

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

I like a bit of magic. Not hardcore magic of boiled lizard tongues and scavenged feathers of a raven, but the gentle magic of scented herbs to keep away misfortune or the use of crystals to bring good luck.

There is some of both in Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman. It is the story of the Owens sisters Sally and Gillian. They come from a long line of women with special powers. Men fall in love with their beauty in a heartbeat.  Fortune and misfortune follow them.

The two young sisters go to live with The Aunts after their parents die. The sisters are about as opposite as can be. Sally the older one is dark-haired and sensible and conscientious. Gillian is blonde and rebellious and idle.

The Aunts call them Night and Day.

The story follows the sisters growing up, finding love, and losing love. Then, after 18 years apart, when Gillian shows up on Sally's doorstep with a desperate secret, it becomes the story of how the sisters come together to handle the consequences.

But more than the spellbinding story is the language Ms. Hoffman uses to tell that story.  It is hypnotic. The images are dreamy. Full of sudden storms and slick toads in the garden and a lilac bush that blooms all year round. Twilight becomes the hour of sorrow. Lightning strikes bring grief and heartbreak. 

Be forewarned: In contrast to the rhythmic language, there are rough words and episodes of violence which I found to be quite jarring. Perhaps that was the point.

I have a vague memory of reading this book when it first was published in 1995, and I recall seeing the 1998 movie with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. I have rented the DVD and am ready to watch it again now that I have finished the book.

I wanted to reread Practical Magic upon hearing that Rules of Magic was published last October. It is Ms. Hoffman's story of The Aunts, their mother Susannah, and how they came into their powers. I have now moved up to #8 on the library's reserve list for the book. I will eventually write about it here.

In the meantime, here is a sample of gentle counsel from Practical Magic:

If a woman is in trouble, she should always wear blue for protection. Blue shoes or a blue dress. A sweater the color of a robin's egg or a scarf the shade of heaven. A thin satin ribbon, carefully threaded through the white lace hem of a slip. Any of these will do. But if a candle burns blue, that is something else entirely, that's no luck at all, for it means there's a spirit in your house. And if the flame should flicker, then grow stronger each time the candle is lit, the spirit is settling in. Its essence is wrapping around the furniture and the floorboards, it's claiming the cabinets and the closets and will soon be rattling windows and doors.