Nordan, Lewis. Boy With Loaded Gun. Chapel Hill: Algonquin, 2000.
Lewis Nordan celebrates a birthday in August. I am pleased to have started off with his nonfiction/fiction memoir, Boy with Loaded Gunas my introduction to Nordan’s writing. I think it will bring insight to everything else I read of his. While this may or may not be a good thing, I am looking forward to it just the same.
Boy with Loaded Gunis heartbreaking and humorous at the same time. Pulling the reader down into sadness, lifting him or her back up with laughter. I found myself comparing the reading experience to that of a fast moving, slightly rickety, out of control rollercoaster. At times I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I didn’t know what was real or an exaggeration. But, I did know one thing, I loved every minute of it; page by page.
Nordan’s memoir begins with the chapter called “Voodoo” and Nordan’s inexplicable love for a voodoo practicing woman. It is at this time Nordan professes, “In these lonely backwaters and days of grief my memory begins” (p 7). We are then taken on a journey through Nordan’s young life while he struggles to love his step-father and escape the confines of small town Itta Bena, Mississippi. Later, it’s coming-of-age encounters with sex and marriage. Babies and buying houses. Alcohol and writing. Down and outs, ups and accomplishements. At times you want to love him. Other times you have to hate him. Just like real life. In other words, human.
Best quotes: “Two men got into an argument about whether a tree was willow or a weed. It was a small knife, and not a deep wound, so neither of the men went home, they just didn’t talk to each other for a while. Then they seemed to forget all about it, and before long they were talking about something else” (p 49).
“Eventually I tried to kill my father, of course” (p 69). Nordan does address the “of course” part of the statement, but it struck me as funny the first time I read it.
“I could scarcely tolerate standing in my own skin, let alone being strong” (p 188).
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter “Lewis Nordan: Too Good To Miss” (p 172).
~*LunaSea*~ 