Dreaming of Columbus : A Boyhood in the Bronx

A moving memoir, Dreaming of Columbus illuminates place as a force that shapes lives. Through recollection and reportage, Michael Pearson recreates the Bronx of the 1950s and 60s, the place of his youth, that "precisely known world, safe and claustrophobic, " an Irish Catholic culture filled with light and shadows. Pearson renders time and place vividly through his lyrical narrative voice and generous spirit toward his characters. In a work that is both comic and sad, he juxtaposes descriptions of adolescent escapades with the grim discipline of parochial schools. It is in this Bronx that dreams of escape fuse with bittersweet memories. The driving force behind Pearson's story is its people -- an enigmatic father, a steadfast mother, an eccentric and influential writing teacher, the boys and girls who shared his neighborhood, the high school girl who shared his vision and his life -- and the books that made escape and return seem possible. Few writers go home again as successfully as Michael Pearson. When he literally and imaginatively revisits the all-but-unrecognizable Bronx of his youth, longing for its intense life, he concedes it was "close to paradise." We understand perfectly.

Michael Pearson is director of creative writing at Old Dominion University