The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid

From one of the most beloved and bestselling authors in
the English language a vivid nostalgic and utterly
hilarious memoir of growing up in the 1950s Bill Bryson
was born in the middle of the American century—1951—in the
middle of the United States—Des Moines Iowa—in the middle
of the largest generation in American history—the baby
boomers. As one of the best and funniest writers alive he
is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally
all-American childhood for 24-carat memoir gold. Like
millions of his generational peers Bill Bryson grew up
with a rich fantasy life as a superhero. In his case he
ran around his house and neighborhood with an old football
jersey with a thunderbolt on it and a towel about his neck
that served as his cape leaping tall buildings in a single
bound and vanquishing awful evildoers (and morons)—in his
head—as The Thunderbolt Kid. Using this persona as a
springboard Bill Bryson re-creates the life of his family
and his native city in the 1950s in all its transcendent
normality—a life at once completely familiar to us all and
as far away and unreachable as another galaxy. It was he
reminds us a happy time when automobiles and televisions
and appliances (not to mention nuclear weapons) grew
larger and more numerous with each passing year and DDT
cigarettes and the fallout from atmospheric testing were
considered harmless or even good for you. He brings us
into the life of his loving but eccentric family including
affectionate portraits of his father a gifted sportswriter
for the local paper and dedicated practitioner of
isometric exercises and OF his mother whose job as the
home furnishing editor for the same paper left her little
time for practicing the domestic arts at home. The many
readers of Bill Bryson’s earlier classic A Walk in the
Woods will greet the reappearance in these pages of the
immortal Stephen Katz seen hijacking literally boxcar
loads of beer. He is joined in the Bryson gallery of
immortal characters by the demonically clever Willoughby
brothers who apply their scientific skills and can-do
attitude to gleefully destructive ends. Warm and
laugh-out-loud funny and full of his inimitable
pitch-perfect observations The Life and Times of the
Thunderbolt Kid is as wondrous a book as Bill Bryson has
ever written. It will enchant anyone who has ever been
young.