Audiobook7 hours
A Strong West Wind: A Memoir
Written by Gail Caldwell
Narrated by Nicole Poole
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
()
About this audiobook
Gail Caldwell is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic for The Boston Globe. Her book A Strong West Wind is a "metaphor-rich, beautifully structured reminiscence" of a child growing up in the turbulent 1960s (Booklist, starred review). Caldwell was born in Texas in 1951; in a land of plains so vast they frightened her. Caldwell's mother was a clandestine lover of books; her father was a master sergeant in World War II. These personalities shaped Caldwell; during the passionate rebellions of the 1960s, she was one of the "children who once made life hell for 'the Greatest Generation' and in the process turned out pretty great themselves" (Russell Baker, author). Turning to books for each poignant change in her life, Caldwell eventually became what her mother could not: a writer. Throughout these changes, Caldwell is driven by the restless desire she once felt as a child in a small town in Texas. "It's refreshing to read a memoir composed of real introspection and insight, a grown-up's mature perspective on a family and an era."-Washington Post Book World "Caldwell comes through as a wise and winning woman-her descriptive passages ... are wonderfully smart, moving and sympathetic-and she emerges ... a memorable narrator."-Publisher's Weekly, starred review
Related to A Strong West Wind
Related audiobooks
The Last Talk with Lola Faye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mirror Lake Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Yosemite Fall: A National Park Mystery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEmma Mcchesney and Company Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMountain Rampage: A National Park Mystery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGenerosity: An Enhancement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tomato Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paradise Motel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sweet Jiminy: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yellowstone Standoff: A National Park Mystery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBorder Crossing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeath at Charity's Point Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNobody's Son: A Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Before We Sleep Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Confessions of Edward Day Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wait, Blink Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLament for Bonnie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Care of Wooden Floors: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Accidental Suffragist Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMother Tongue: My Family's Globe-Trotting Quest to Dream in Mandarin, Laugh in Arabic, and Sing in Spanish Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Woman Beyond the Sea Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Agreed to Meet Just Here Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Case: Book 1 of the Alice White Investigator Series Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCruel Mercy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sanctuary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Crime of Julian Wells Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ten Days in the Hills Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Girl Factory: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beautiful Monster: A Becoming Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5There Are No Rules For This: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Personal Memoirs For You
The Woman in Me Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Down the Drain Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Counting the Cost Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Finding Me: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'm Glad My Mom Died Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Night: New translation by Marion Wiesel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Stolen Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals Presents: Good Girl: Notes on Dog Rescue Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Own It All: How to Stop Waiting for Change and Start Creating It. Because Your Life Belongs to You. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: My Year of Psychedelics: Lessons on Better Living Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Pageboy: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Roxane Gay & Everand Originals: Built for This: The Quiet Strength of Powerlifting Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5If You Would Have Told Me: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Making It So: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good Girls Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5See You on the Way Down: Catch You on the Way Back Up! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wishful Drinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bad Mormon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love, Lucy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Taste: My Life Through Food Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for A Strong West Wind
Rating: 3.240000016 out of 5 stars
3/5
25 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Caldwell 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.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book is beautifully written, but not really my cup of tea. I had a very hard time getting into and staying in this book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I 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 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.