Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Beggars of Life: A Hobo Autobiographyby Jim Tully
None Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. I'm not sure what I find so appealing about hobo literature, but stories of men on the road, fending for themselves or banding together with others for temporary advantage, are fascinating. Seeing how little one can survive on--seeing the kindness of strangers--or seeing the horror of something like the lynching Tully describes near the end of this book. It all rings true and real, although I understand it isn't strictly nonfiction. What counts is that Tully could write with the best of them. His prose is straightforward, but not unadorned. There is no monotony, just solid description and the ability to put the reader in the middle of a pitch-black train car or a hobo jungle during a downpour. His observations, such as his high opinion of what he calls "women of the underworld," are convincing. The book ends with a paean to reading, citing some of his favorite authors and confessing to a lot of book thefts. Unlike most of the men he met on the road, Tully ended up thriving. And good for him. But let's spare a moment to appreciate the lives of the other men who lived by the code of the road and didn't fare so well. Tully's book is a fitting memorial for them. ( ) 1924. A rollicking good tale of life on the road. Tully tells it like it was. He basically goes around begging and stealing and trying not to get too mixed up with the rougher criminal types. His depictions of incidents involving black people show the brutal way they were often treated among white hoboes and in society in general. It's not a nice or genteel book. He frequents brothels and isn't too kind to the women there, but neither is he entirely an unfeeling beast. He seems to be trying to report a faithful record of what happened, through a lens of his own prejudices, which I can only imagine must have been fairly typical of the time period. People are beaten frequently, injured and killed on the trains, and he witnesses a lynching at one point. It's a bit graphic sometimes. Overall, an interesting window into another era. There's some good anecdotal stories here but not much for plot; the chapters are snapshots of a life on the rods tied up in the end with a bit of socio-cultural commentary. What's most interesting about this book is the fact it's been out of print for decades and this publisher (Nabat) has spent time researching the archives of the Library of Congress to find books of this nature and republish them (i.e. You Can't Win by Jack Black - highly recommended). A publisher myself, and very interested in American history-culture-society, this strategy appeals to me. no reviews | add a review
Has the adaptation
Tully's breakthrough novel about life on the road Jim Tully left his hometown of St. Marys, Ohio, in 1901, spending most of his teenage years in the company of hoboes. Drifting across the country as a "road kid," he spent those years scrambling into boxcars, sleeping in hobo jungles, avoiding railroad cops, begging meals from back doors, and haunting public libraries. Tully crafted these memories into a dark and astonishing chronicle of the American underclass--especially in his second book, Beggars of Life, an autobiographical novel published in 1924. Tully saw it all, from a church baptism in the Mississippi River to election day in Chicago. And in Beggars of Life, he captures an America largely hidden from view. This novelistic memoir impressed readers and reviewers with its remarkable vitality and honesty. Tully's devotion to Mark Twain and Jack London taught him the importance of giving the reader a sense of place, and this he does brilliantly, again and again, throughout Beggars of Life. From the opening conversation on a railroad trestle, Beggars of Life rattles along like the Fast Flyer Virginia that Tully boards midway through the book. This is the book that defined Tully's hard-boiled style and set the pattern for the twelve books that followed over the next two decades. Startling in its originality and intensity, Beggars of Life is a breakneck journey made while clinging to the lowest rungs of the social ladder. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)305.568Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Groups of people Class Lower, alienated, excluded classesLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |