Toy Fights: A Boyhood

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Synopsis
“It’s wonderful, aggressively wise, and always—especially at its most serious—devastatingly funny.” —Geoff Dyer For readers of Douglas Stuart and Nick Hornby comes an uproarious, tenderhearted memoir of growing up in working-class Dundee in the 1970s and 1980s. Don Paterson is one of our most acclaimed contemporary poets, possessed of “an infinite sensitivity to the world” (Zadie Smith). But his current standing gives few hints of his hilariously misspent youth. An indifferent student prone to obsessions (with girls at school and . . . origami), Paterson nevertheless made clear early on his immense gift for observation. In Toy Fights, he vividly re-creates the customs of the Scottish working class, from the titular childhood game (“basically twenty minutes of extreme violence without pretext”) to the virtues of the sugary sweet known as tablet. When American pop culture arrived, Paterson fell hard for the so-called outlaw sound; by his teens, he was traveling with his father, a Stetson-wearing “country” musician, and becoming guitar-mad himself. A memoir of family, music, and highly inventive profanity, Toy Fights is an unforgettable account of the years we all spend in rehearsal for real life.
Copyright:
2023

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
384 Pages
ISBN-13:
9781324093633
Related ISBNs:
9781324095194, 9781324093626
Publisher:
Liveright
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Don Paterson
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs, Education, Communication, Music
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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