Storyville, USA

by Dale Peterson

Release Date: October, 1999

Edition: Hardcover

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Rates a C+ as a high school essay.

I like "cute" but 300 pages of it? The author quaintly refers to his map as his "cartographicus magnus," not once, but for 300 pages. His high school text, "A Guide To Colorful Writing," was heavily used as evidenced by this typical sentence:
"After a major interlude of rest and relaxation in our very own home just north of Boston, after sunny days followed by damp and drizzly ones, after a wallow in middle-aged domesticity followed by a shallow impatience with it, after a dozen serious dog walks and a thousand gentle strokes on the canine cranium, at last we put down our collective foot and raised Storyville's second leg." The book was published by the University of Georgia Press. Why?

Beauty In The Details

In a time when all of the metropolitan areas all look pretty much the same, with all of the same chain stores giving malls that same kind of banality, this travelogue refreshes my memory of all of the quaint and inimitable places that I remember from my youthful wanderings. I found myself anxious to discover the origins of the picturesque locations and even when the search proved disappointing there were still the fascinating observations of the author and his "research crew." I wish I had found these sort of stories with my kids.