Little Boy: A Novel

Little Boy: A Novel

<b>"Ferlinghetti has not just survived for a century: He epitomizes the American culture of that century. . .The story of <i>Little Boy</i> echo[es] a great national question. . .Who, little boys and girls, juvenile yet old, do we think we are?"<br><b>—</b>Robert Pinsky, <i>The New York Times Book Review </i><br><br>From the famed publisher and poet, author of the million-copy-selling collection <i>A Coney Island of the Mind</i>, his literary last will and testament -- part autobiography, part summing up, part Beat-inflected torrent of language and feeling, and all magical.</b><br><br>In this unapologetically unclassifiable work Lawrence Ferlinghetti lets loose an exhilarating rush of language to craft what might be termed a closing statement about his highly significant and productive 99 years on this planet. The "Little Boy" of the title is Ferlinghetti himself as a child, shuffled from his overburdened mother to his French aunt to foster childhood with a rich Bronxville family. Service in World War Two (including the D-Day landing), graduate work, and a scholar gypsy's vagabond life in Paris followed. These biographical reminiscences are interweaved with Allen Ginsberg-esque high energy bursts of raw emotion, rumination, reflection, reminiscence and prognostication on what we may face as a species on Planet Earth in the future. <i>Little Boy </i>is a magical font of literary lore with allusions galore, a final repository of hard-earned and durable wisdom, a compositional high wire act without a net (or all that much punctuation) and just a gas and an inspiration to read.