The Happiest Man in the World: An Account of the Life of Poppa Neutrino

I was interested in reading more about Poppa Neutrino because he is the father of New Orleans singer Ingrid Lucia. I have read Ingrid's Facebook posts her father and found him to be a very interesting man. I wanted to compare the impression given by his daughter to that of a person who was not "family".

I did enjoy learning more about Poppa Neutrino, and his adventures, but I did not care for the writing style of Alec Wilkinson. He traveled with Poppa Neutrino for short periods, I assume to research for this book. He would throw in random sentences about things like scenery. (one about plastic bags caught on a barbed wire fence comes to mind), which would just make me wonder why he chose to do that. Wilkinson also used the words "as if" show more so many times, it became a source of irritation for me. I am no expert on writing styles. The following blurbs on the book jacket make me wonder why I thought Wilkinson's writing style was not great. The only person I was familiar with is Garrison Keillor.

From Keillor: "The writing is elegant, and the book, I think, is a masterpiece."
Other blurbs on the writing of this book are from Sebastian Junger, "Wilkinson's writing is so flawless and engaging..." and Edward Hirsch, "Alec Wilkinson has been preparing all his life to write this masterpiece of joy..." show less

Poppa Neutrino's colourful story is wasted on this hopeless biography. The soulless prose is laborious and you'll gain equal insight reading the four short paragraphs of his Wikipedia entry.