Great read!
"This book brought back memories of my adolescent years in a way few books ever has. It captures the best and worst of growing up in the 70's and 80's and resonated just as much with my kids who read it to better understand what life was like before smartphones and the internet changed the world and shrank attention spans. Highly recommend!"
Great Coming of Age Story
"Part Ham on Rye, part Catcher in the Rye, but utterly unique and sui generis and its own thing. By turns funny and touching, without ever being overtly rib-tickling or sentimental. Livingston's prose is clean, clear, and crisp. A must-read for anyone who enjoys a good bildungsroman aka coming-of-age yarn."
In this debut fictional memoir, Andrew Livingston unveils a vivid portrait of coming of age in Vancouver, British Columbia, during the top-down, seatbelt-free, joy ride of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Funny and honest, Livingston investigates his turbulent family life under the tyranny and ultimately, the tragedy, of his father's alcoholism. The novel's protagonist, 'Handy Andy' journeys from boy to young man, experiencing both the transformative power of literature and the frustration of being an individual against the system.
Great read!
"This book brought back memories of my adolescent years in a way few books ever has. It captures the best and worst of growing up in the 70's and 80's and resonated just as much with my kids who read it to better understand what life was like before smartphones and the internet changed the world and shrank attention spans. Highly recommend!"
Great Coming of Age Story
"Part Ham on Rye, part Catcher in the Rye, but utterly unique and sui generis and its own thing. By turns funny and touching, without ever being overtly rib-tickling or sentimental. Livingston's prose is clean, clear, and crisp. A must-read for anyone who enjoys a good bildungsroman aka coming-of-age yarn."
In this debut fictional memoir, Andrew Livingston unveils a vivid portrait of coming of age in Vancouver, British Columbia, during the top-down, seatbelt-free, joy ride of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Funny and honest, Livingston investigates his turbulent family life under the tyranny and ultimately, the tragedy, of his father's alcoholism. The novel's protagonist, 'Handy Andy' journeys from boy to young man, experiencing both the transformative power of literature and the frustration of being an individual against the system.
So. When my mom told my Grandpa Earl she was knocked up with me, a boy, he went straight out and bought her a mink coat and a new sports car. He told her my name. âAndy. Itâs going to be AndyâHandy Andy the Train Wrecker.â It turned out that way, too. Except, well, my real first nameâs Robert, but nobody ever calls me that, and my middle nameâs Andy. My dadâs name, my Old Man, is Robert John Livingston, but people donât call him John, they just call him âBig Bad Bob.â
Grandpa Earl Livingstonâs first name is also Robert, and heâs a âScotch-Irish Bastard,â as my Old Man likes to say. The first-born men in my family are all named Robert, and it goes all the way back in time to the first guy in Scotland, I guess, who must have been a big bad deal way back when.
Grandpa Earl and I used to have fun together. Iâm way too old for it now, of course, but he used to put me up on one of his bony old knees, sitting in a chair, and heâd be laughing the whole time. âHar, har, har... Itâs Handy Andy... Itâs Handy Andy the Train Wrecker!â A couple times, I almost fell off the old fuckerâs leg.
The Old Man told me once that Grandpa Earl and his buddies built Vancouver from the ground up, when all you could see around was just a bunch of rocks and trees and mountains. One time, when Dad was sitting like usual, in his old chair in front of the TV, he leaned over to me like he was telling me some big secret. âYa know what? That old bastard was a World War I Flying Ace.â I figured that was probably true. Who the hell would lie about a thing like that? One thingâs for sure, that would take some balls. Flying up in the sky, all by yourself in a Bristol Sprout or Avro DH2, and dogfighting Germans with a machine gun isnât exactly everybodyâs kind of work, if you know what I mean. Some Saturday nights, if Mom and Dad planned a party, Iâd get dropped off at Grandpa Earlâs apartment in Kerrisdale.
I was sitting across from him and Gran eating supper, and for no good reason, I got the jimmy legs under the table.
âWhatâs the matter with you, boy?â Grandpa Earl asked me, then asked my Gran, âMarion, whatâs the matter with the boy?â He looked back at me with a raised eyebrow. "You look fine to me. Just fine.â He laughed again. âHar, har, har! Well, um, Andy, now... What kinds of things interest you? What gets your ass up in the morning?â
âWell, sir, I like to drive in the big white truck with Dad,â I lied, like an idiot. I also didnât tell him that sometimes, when the Old Man put the brakes on too hard, a Vodka bottle rolled out from under the driverâs seat.
âDriving in the truck?! Har, har, har! Did you hear that, Marion? Well, I think thatâs just Skookum, Andy, Skookum!â
I smiled at him. I picked up my knife and fork and put them down again. I moved my dinner napkin back and forth across my legs. I imagined lots of guys probably wouldnât mind punching that big old nose of his, given half a chance. Gran smiled at me with her tree bark face and handed me a dish of sticky cheese casserole. I grabbed a big spoon and dropped a large clump onto my plate. We finished eating in silence, which didnât seem to bother anybody too much. Nobody in my family goes in much for palavering.
In the silence, my winker peeps got stuck on this brown cabinet on the wall. My Gran had arranged all these glass figures she collected from the old-timey days on the shelves: a boy walking a dog, a violet lady in a fancy dress, a guy with a wheelbarrow filled with flowers, a dressed-up guy with curly hair playing a funny-looking guitar for his girlfriend. I liked looking at them. They made you start thinking to yourself, âWhat kind of song could that guy play on that thing?â or âWhere the hell is that guy pushing a wheelbarrow?â
Grandpa Earl stood up from the table and went over to sit in a chair by the window, next to a side table with an old radio on it. He turned the radio on, adjusting the dial until we heard Dick Irvin announcing the game on Hockey Night in Canada. The Flyers were playing the Montreal Canadiens at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. It damn well sounded like the Canadiens were going to win another Stanley Cup. Well, with the âblond demonâ Lafleur and that âthieving giraffeâ Dryden in goal, how could they screw up? Grandpa Earl sat in his chair and I laid myself out on the floor in front of him. Every time Montreal scored, he closed his eyes, grimaced, and let out a whistle. He was so mad at the end of the game, he stormed off into his bedroom, shut the door, and wouldnât come out again.
Later that night, as I lay in bed in the spare room that smelled funnyâlike a hospital room or a dentistâs officeâI was still goddamn hungry. I didnât want to get up and go into the kitchen because theyâd hear me and come on out and make a big deal out of it. I stared up at the ceiling and imagined all the stuff I could eat, like a giant bowl of Count Chocula, or some Hostess Ding Dongs, or maybe some Peanut Butter Ho Hoâs just sitting there in the dark, all alone, behind the closed doors of the kitchen cabinets.
I closed my eyes and imagined what it would feel like if beavers and wolves and bears were running over my skin and fish were swimming in my veins. After that, I fell asleep in the dark.
From the first page, the narration was my favorite thing about Train Wrecker. Andrew Livingston gives a relaxed, naughty, and straight-talker vibe that just makes one sit back and enjoy the story. Starting in 1977, we see Andyâs shenanigans from boyhood to his youth days. We get to witness the atmosphere from the â70s to â80s when every adult still held power (e.g. being able to be disciplined by a friendâs parent and being âtoughened upâ by a virtual stranger) and the lax rules that existed (e.g. driving children that are not strapped in and a child dying from a simple peanut allergy).
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There are many things to love about this book. The story is just narrated perfectly: the tone, the diction, and the overall resultant atmosphere are amazing! Short chapters only add to the fast-paced storytelling at work here, which makes this an unexpectedly quick read. Once you pick this up, you will find it difficult to put it down. It is a fully engrossing story that kept me captivated throughout. Even though I did not live through any of the decades in the book, it had a reminiscent feel to it. Maybe it was the âhang looseâ sign being thrown around, the gone-too-far bullying of old, or even the stupidity of a hormonal teenager that created the illusion of nostalgia but I still loved it.
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As much as I loved reading it, there were some flaws. The smallest one is the writing errors as there were quite a few of those. There was also a tendency to S-P-E-L-L out words that were, contextually, just YELLED out. Outside of those writing issues, there really isnât much to fault about the book. If you want to read it, you should be aware that there are instances of suicide and bullying chronicled. If reading about such situations might adversely affect you, rather put this on your TBR for a while. But definitely get around to it because the story is a must-read.Â