Peter Damm's WILD BLUEBERRIES (2019) is a perfect gem of a memoir, rendered in the form of 25 short essays giving us a window into his childhood and adolescence, with all the strangeness, humor and charm of growing up Catholic in small town Michigan in the 50s and 60. He was the youngest of six children, who were all educated by nuns in the Catholic school system, learning all about saints, sacraments and sin. Many of these stories are laugh out loud funny, hilarious even, especially if you share that kind of background, as I do. In the final two essays of Part II, however, things get more serious, as Damm graduates from the University of Michigan with a degree in English Lit and no particular plans, clashes bitterly with his lawyer father, and goes off to travel about Europe ("Leaving"). Years later he flies back to Michigan from his home in California to reconcile and sit with his father who is dying a painful death from cancer ("Father").

I wondered - that title, WILD BLUEBERRIES - if this memoir might have been intended as a nod to Bergman's WILD STRAWBERRIES, which was also a paean to a special time and place. Maybe.

I loved this book, because there was so much I could relate to, and because it is so well written. I Googled Peter Damm, who is 73 now, and learned he later earned a doctorate in clinical psychology and that he is also the CEO of a real estate firm in Berkley, CA. His father needn't have worried. He did okay. Did I say I loved this book? I did. My very highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir BOOKLOVER ( )