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Title details for The Next Better Place by Michael C. Keith Ph.D. - Available

The Next Better Place

Memories of My Misspent Youth

by Michael C. Keith Ph.D.
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In 1959, at the age of eleven, Michael Keith left a relatively stable life with his mother and sisters in Albany, New York, and surreptitiously set off for California with his irresponsible alcoholic father. For the rest of Michael's childhood, the two crisscrossed America, perpetually en route to someplace else. His memoir, told in the fresh, funny, world-wise voice of the young boy he once was, describes their bizarre encounters hitchhiking the nation's highways. In the rundown rooming houses and homeless missions where they hole up as Michael's father works odd jobs to make enough money for them to move on, or in the AA meetings they attend in every city for a decent doughnut, we glimpse a different America. Pushed onward by Michael's unceasing thirst for new adventures and his father's dreams of the next better place, the careworn twosome live far outside convention.

But despite their peculiar, often dysfunctional life, there is real love between this father and son, and they share the glorious freedom of the peripatetic life. That such happiness exists in a lonely marginal universe doesn't overshadow the fact that a Greyhound bus is the closest Michael comes to experiencing the idea of home. THE NEXT BETTER PLACE explores the fine line between wanderlust and compulsion, between running away and arriving, and leaves us with the understanding that the journey is often more powerful than the destination.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 6, 2004

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781565128798

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781565128798
      • File size: 2264 KB

  • Accessibility

    The publisher provides the following statement about the accessibility of the EPUB file supplied to OverDrive. Experiences may vary across reading systems. After borrowing the book, you may download the EPUB files to read in another reading system.

    Ways Of Reading

    • No information about appearance modifiability is available.

    • Not all of the content will be readable as read aloud speech or dynamic braille.

    Conformance

    • No information is available.

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • ATOS Level: 6.7
    • Interest Level: 9-12(UG)
    • Text Difficulty: 5

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 19, 2002
      Former radio broadcaster Keith, a Boston College communications lecturer, tours his childhood in this charming, often poetic memoir, a hitchhiker travelogue that reads like Little League Kerouac. The journey begins in Albany, N.Y., in 1959, two years after Keith's parents divorced. Together, 11-year-old Mikey and his alcoholic father, Curt, plan their trip to California: "The West beckons, and I am dizzy with anticipation." The duo travels by Greyhound, stopping in New York City, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Denver along the way. They seek shelter in missions, motels and back-street rooming houses, finally arriving at the Encino Paradise Motel: "I think I'm happier than I have been in my whole life," Keith writes. They survive on stolen sardines and graham crackers between the odd jobs that Curt occasionally lands and encounter plenty of quirky characters, including a paranoid embalmer's assistant who has his umbrella filed into a weapon. From Los Angeles, they proceed to Las Vegas, Fort Worth and finally back to Albany. Keith brings to life these long-ago people and places. He doesn't shy away from his father's "bout with the bottle," but the boozy past is bathed in a wistful, rosy hue: "Sitting in a moving Greyhound is the closest I come to experiencing the bliss of home. If I could, I would live on one forever." Agent, Christi Cardenas. (Jan. 17)Forecast:In addition to national publicity and advertising, Keith will promote his memoir with an eight-city tour, which should spark further interest.

    • Library Journal

      December 1, 2002
      Although this autobiographical narrative is hardly an American version of Angela's Ashes, there are several parallels. The book recounts Keith's 11th year, in 1959, when his mother allowed him to live with his father because she could not care for her son and his two younger sisters. In the dubious charge of this man-a feckless alcoholic and drifter, dependent on the charity of others and the Catholic Church-Keith was always filthy, often hungry, and seldom in school. The quest for a better life in California took the hapless pair from Albany, NY, to Los Angeles and back again, with stops in Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Denver, Las Vegas, and Fort Worth. It was a life-changing odyssey for both, managed via Greyhound and hitchhiking, peppered with unusual characters (including bums and bedbugs), and brightened by the kindness of strangers-all in search of "the next better place." Keith, now a broadcast media expert and the author of numerous books, skillfully and humorously re-creates his experience and his vision of a world that is rarely threatening and always full of promise and adventure. Recommended for all public libraries.-Janet Ross, formerly with Sparks Branch Lib., NV

      Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • ATOS Level:6.7
  • Interest Level:9-12(UG)
  • Text Difficulty:5

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