Description

Book Synopsis
Collecting stories from John Taylor’s upbringing in Des Moines, these “charming evocations of a Midwestern childhood” (as the French film director Louis Malle called them), recall an “average” neighborhood in the 1950s and 1960s. The death of the author’s mother gives rise to these sensitive reminiscences, which also conjure up first loves, playmates, and a motley assortment of true-to-life characters who express their modest joys and lasting secret sorrows. The Presence of Things Past (the title alludes to the eleventh book of the Confessions of Saint Augustine), is a tribute to a lost mother, a lost neighborhood, a lost city, and a lost childhood.

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Excerpt translated in Il Giornalaccio

The Presence of Things Past

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    A Paperback by John Taylor

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      Book details

      Publisher Red Hen Press
      Published 26 November 2020
      ISBN-13 9781586541064
      978-1586541064
      ISBN-10 1586541064

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      Collecting stories from John Taylor’s upbringing in Des Moines, these “charming evocations of a Midwestern childhood” (as the French film director Louis Malle called them), recall an “average” neighborhood in the 1950s and 1960s. The death of the author’s mother gives rise to these sensitive reminiscences, which also conjure up first loves, playmates, and a motley assortment of true-to-life characters who express their modest joys and lasting secret sorrows. The Presence of Things Past (the title alludes to the eleventh book of the Confessions of Saint Augustine), is a tribute to a lost mother, a lost neighborhood, a lost city, and a lost childhood.

      Trade Review
      Excerpt translated in Il Giornalaccio

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