The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
 | By Bill Bryson Broadway, 2007, Paperback Customer Rating: 66 reviews Recommend |
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From one of the most beloved and bestselling authors in the English language, a vivid, nostalgic, and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the 1950s
Bill Bryson was born in the middle of the American century—1951—in the middle of the United States—Des Moines, Iowa—in the middle of the largest generation in American history—the baby boomers. As one of the best and funniest writers alive, he is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24-carat memoir gold. Like millions of his generational peers, Bill Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero. In his case, he ran around his house and neighborhood with an old football jersey with a thunderbolt on it and a towel about his neck that served as his cape, leaping tall buildings in a single bound and vanquishing awful evildoers (and morons)—in his head—as "The Thunderbolt Kid."
Using this persona as a springboard, Bill Bryson re-creates the life of his family and his native city in the 1950s in all its transcendent normality—a life at once completely familiar to us all and as far away and unreachable as another galaxy. It was, he reminds us, a happy time, when automobiles and televisions and appliances (not to mention nuclear weapons) grew larger and more numerous with each passing year, and DDT, cigarettes, and the fallout from atmospheric testing were considered harmless or even good for you. He brings us into the life of his loving but eccentric family, including affectionate portraits of his father, a gifted sportswriter for the local paper and dedicated practitioner of isometric exercises, and OF his mother, whose job as the home furnishing editor for the same paper left her little time for practicing the domestic arts at home. The many readers of Bill Bryson’s earlier classic, A Walk in the Woods, will greet the reappearance in these pages of the immortal Stephen Katz, seen hijacking literally boxcar loads of beer. He is joined in the Bryson gallery of immortal characters by the demonically clever Willoughby brothers, who apply their scientific skills and can-do attitude to gleefully destructive ends.
Warm and laugh-out-loud funny, and full of his inimitable, pitch-perfect observations, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is as wondrous a book as Bill Bryson has ever written. It will enchant anyone who has ever been young.
Title: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
Sales Rank: 5949 in Books
Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: Broadway, 2007-09-25, Paperback, 288 pages, ISBN: 0767919378
Package Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches, 0.6 pounds
- Thunderbolt Kid Entertains
- Bryson's "Thunderbolt Kid" does more to recapture the pure fun of an American boyhood
in the mid-West of the 50s than any memoir you can think of. He reminds you of the view
from about 4 feet high, and the excitement of "going downtown" when there were downtowns
to go to. Read it!… More reviews
- Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
- Laughed and laughed! but it was also right on the mark for those of us growing up in the 50's. More reviews
- A great read, regardless of what decade you were born in.
- This isn't the type of book you'd see a 17-year-old read, so how'd I come by it? My English teacher, the always unique Thomas Moudry, read it to us over a course of weeks. At first the premise sounded boring, because I associate the 1950's with boring, but boy, was I wrong. My teacher knows what is good.
In this memoir, Bill Bryson, who writes… More reviews
- What a delight
- I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Brought back so many memories and can't remember the last time I laughed so hard. Bryson's comedic timing was supurb, and his descriptions so acurate. I want to share this experience with others, just can't decide who I should lend it to first. … More reviews
- Maybe its not quite my era
- I do enjoy Bryson's writing, and have thoroughly enjoyed his other work. And I do enjoy the writing in this book. However...why am I not laughing so hard at this book? My boyhood in the 60s was just under ten years removed from the world Bryson describes. Yet so much of what he describes was real about my world, too. I, like him, feel keenly the… More reviews
