| Author: | Lawrence Ferlinghetti | ISBN: | 9780385544795 |
| Publisher: | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group | Publication: | March 19, 2019 |
| Imprint: | Doubleday | Language: | English |
| Author: | Lawrence Ferlinghetti |
| ISBN: | 9780385544795 |
| Publisher: | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |
| Publication: | March 19, 2019 |
| Imprint: | Doubleday |
| Language: | English |
**"Ferlinghetti has not just survived for a century: He epitomizes the American culture of that century. . .The story of Little Boy echo[es] a great national question. . .Who, little boys and girls, juvenile yet old, do we think we are?"
—Robert Pinsky, The New York Times Book Review
From the famed publisher and poet, author of the million-copy-selling collection A Coney Island of the Mind, his literary last will and testament -- part autobiography, part summing up, part Beat-inflected torrent of language and feeling, and all magical.**
In this unapologetically unclassifiable work Lawrence Ferlinghetti lets loose an exhilarating rush of language to craft what might be termed a closing statement about his highly significant and productive 99 years on this planet. The "Little Boy" of the title is Ferlinghetti himself as a child, shuffled from his overburdened mother to his French aunt to foster childhood with a rich Bronxville family. Service in World War Two (including the D-Day landing), graduate work, and a scholar gypsy's vagabond life in Paris followed. These biographical reminiscences are interweaved with Allen Ginsberg-esque high energy bursts of raw emotion, rumination, reflection, reminiscence and prognostication on what we may face as a species on Planet Earth in the future. Little Boy is a magical font of literary lore with allusions galore, a final repository of hard-earned and durable wisdom, a compositional high wire act without a net (or all that much punctuation) and just a gas and an inspiration to read.
**"Ferlinghetti has not just survived for a century: He epitomizes the American culture of that century. . .The story of Little Boy echo[es] a great national question. . .Who, little boys and girls, juvenile yet old, do we think we are?"
—Robert Pinsky, The New York Times Book Review
From the famed publisher and poet, author of the million-copy-selling collection A Coney Island of the Mind, his literary last will and testament -- part autobiography, part summing up, part Beat-inflected torrent of language and feeling, and all magical.**
In this unapologetically unclassifiable work Lawrence Ferlinghetti lets loose an exhilarating rush of language to craft what might be termed a closing statement about his highly significant and productive 99 years on this planet. The "Little Boy" of the title is Ferlinghetti himself as a child, shuffled from his overburdened mother to his French aunt to foster childhood with a rich Bronxville family. Service in World War Two (including the D-Day landing), graduate work, and a scholar gypsy's vagabond life in Paris followed. These biographical reminiscences are interweaved with Allen Ginsberg-esque high energy bursts of raw emotion, rumination, reflection, reminiscence and prognostication on what we may face as a species on Planet Earth in the future. Little Boy is a magical font of literary lore with allusions galore, a final repository of hard-earned and durable wisdom, a compositional high wire act without a net (or all that much punctuation) and just a gas and an inspiration to read.
