Begins loose and zany; funnels down to tight, lyrical and tragic. Norton experienced a diffident, benignly neglectful childhood and grew into a man mostly comprised of self-destructive behaviors, but he tells his story with such honesty, humor, charm and total lack of self-pity that I felt absolved from any need to judge or worry and was just glad to be along for the ride. If you don't mind sitting next to that somewhat weird, yet bright, storytelling uncle at Thanksgiving who often makes you laugh, usually makes you wonder if he's exaggerating, and sometimes makes you wonder how he survived his life, you'll likely enjoy this. I did.

P.S. As with many of the memoirs I have read, it was helpful to have Google Maps nearby to explore the locations in the book. Poor Itta Bena has seen better days. ( )

memoirs by alcoholic writer of boyhood in Mississippi w step dad

In Boy with Loaded Gun, novelist Lewis "Buddy" Nordan, who relishes in the dark flavors of all forms of human folly, chronicles his own wayward deeds in his candid memoir of an "odd child" who grows into a tragically perverse adult. With hard won introspection, Nordan does not flinch when writing of his shortcomings, including adulteries, alcoholism and homelessness. Even in the midst of this pain, Nordan's characteristic wit rises to to the top of his prose, though it is more stingy and acerbic than the redemptive humor found in the majority of his novels.

This memoir is compartmentalized into three parts, with the first chronicling his childhood in Itta Bena, Mississippi. If you are not familiar with the author, I would recommend this work as a splendid introduction, as many characters in his novels are ripped right from the author's own childhood experiences and sublimated into his literary black comedy with a profound moral center. There is chapter on his reaction to Emmet Till's murder that serves as inspiration for his most well known novel, Wolf Whistle.

This work is infused with grief and loss from the beginning, as Nordan's father died before he could even form any tangible memories of the man. However, there are moments of sheer joy and humor that the reader can delight in, such as young Nordan's addiction to mail order subscriptions or an incident where he finds himself locked out of his hotel in NYC, naked of course.

Through all of his missteps, the alcoholism, failed marriage and deaths of his sons, Nordan focuses on the redemptive nature of writing. Given the veracity and lyricism of his fictional prose, I can not imagine Nordan ever being at a loss for words. But, as a child, he longed for "words that came from so deep inside me that when I heard their sound, perceived their meaning, I would become possessed of a new self, somehow, one that might someday leave Itta Bena and exist, nay thrive, in another world." And it is through his writing that Nordan escapes both Itta Bena and his own string of follies and regret.

Read Boy with Loaded Gun to laugh, and also read it to weep, for in its pages every range of emotion is illuminated. ( )

Boy With Loaded Gun is a brutally honest and self-deprecating memoir by novelist Lewis Nordan. From his boyhood in Itta Bena (rhymes with Argentina), Mississippi to his later successful years, Nordan has no problem describing his own various foolish actions and the resultant heartache for his loved ones. From buying a mail-order pistol as a boy to his drinking and affairs (including one with a friend of his first wife), Nordan is harder on himself than anyone else.

Nordan is adept at finding the humor in bad situations. His scene of breaking off an affair with a woman half his age is ridiculously funny as he describes how he allows emotionally florid language and meaningless words to “substitute for the event in front of me.”

Nordan seems to be seeking cathartic freedom in writing the truth about his life. It makes for a great memoir. ( )

Boy with Loaded Gun is heartbreaking and humorous at the same time. Pulling the reader down into sadness, lifting him or her back up with laughter. I found myself comparing the reading experience to that of a fast moving, slightly rickety, out of control rollercoaster. At times I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I didn't know what was real or an exaggeration. But, I did know one thing, I loved every minute of it; page by page.
Nordan's memoir begins with the chapter called "Voodoo" and Nordan's inexplicable love for a voodoo practicing woman. It is at this time Nordan professes, "In these lonely backwaters and days of grief my memory begins" (p 7). We are then taken on a journey through Nordan's young life while he struggles to love his step-father and escape the confines of small town Itta Bena, Mississippi. Later, it's coming-of-age encounters with sex and marriage. Babies and buying houses. Alcohol and writing. Down and outs, ups and accomplishements. At times you want to love him. Other times you have to hate him. Just like real life. In other words, human. ( )