A Strong West Wind: A Memoir

I was drawn to the idea of a memoir written by a literary critic in which she examines the pull of her Texas childhood on the woman she grows into being, who acknowledges the importance of the books she's read in shaping her personality, and who has gone on to have an illustrious and celebrated career in a field that is wildly interesting to me. Unfortunately, unlike almost every other reviewer out there who raves over this memoir, I thought the book fell flat.

Divided into two parts: Texas and everything afterwards, this was a painfully slow, navel-gazing read. The writing was able but pretentious. It was emotionally flat. Caldwell is clearly an incredibly erudite woman but her meandering text was a strain. It was a strain to care. It show more was a strain to stay awake. It was a strain not to close the book for good one night and give into surrender. While she didn't fall into the dysfunctional childhood memoir, exactly, she seems to suggest that her father's exacting and strict influence on her life was somehow injurious. The young girl who overcame being stricken with polio as a baby, who powered through so much on sheer determination as a child, seemed to be lost as she grew up. And in her place was a depressed woman who had somehow lost her way. Riding along with her while she tried to find her sense of self again was not particularly pleasurable, despite the occasional flashes of beautiful imagery. I am essentially alone in my assessment of the book but I don't want another reading experience like this one any time soon. show less

Interesting sort of memoir, as Caldwell is just a few years older than I am, but lived in a vastly different part of the country. The images of life in Texas were interesting, though I did get a little impatient with her coming of age years. (It's only fair. Those coming of age are usually pretty impatient with their world, too.) Reading of her parents, the word that comes to mind is hardscrabble, but by the time Caldwell came into the picture, they were probably more middle class. She tells the story of her youth and young adulthood in the 60's and 70's interspersed with her parents story of their lives and her relationship with them (particularly her father.) There is rage and anger, but there is love.

And there's a love for the dry, show more dusty land of Texas, where Caldwell first cut her teeth. The prologue opening sentence snared me: "For a long time my want for Texas was so veiled in guilt and ambiguity that I couldn't claim it for the sadness it was. I missed the people and the land and the sky — my God I missed the sky — but most of all I missed the sense of placid mystery the place evoked, endemic there as heat is to thunder. You can be gone for years from Texas, I now believe, and still be felled by such memories." Another passage, when an older Caldwell returns to Texas from Boston (where she writes for the Globe) because of her father's death. It is her job to make sure his .22 Remington wasn't still loaded. Though it had been a long time since she'd held a rifle, she remembered just what to do and out behind her parents' house to empty the rounds safely. "I realized how I must look — a barefoot woman in the yard with a rifle in her arms — and I remembered where I was and thought, Oh hell, it's Texas, no one would even care."

There's a good review of this book on bookreporter.com. show less

Caldwell fans will have a no brainer and any writer wannabe will want to add this to their list. But for the rest of the readers, Caldwell writes as if she's sprawled in your living room or sharing one of your pockets on a cold day. I picked up the audio and the print.

This book is beautifully written, but not really my cup of tea. I had a very hard time getting into and staying in this book.

Did not like this at all!