I bought four of Billy Pearson’s books at a book signing at ABC Books seven years ago. As I mentioned then, Billy Pearson started writing when he was 80 years old and had nine books in print by the time of his book signing. So I have to admire that and to look upon his works with a certain affection even though they’re not very good. I previously reported on his novel The Chemistry of Love in 2019, not long after I bought them. The gap is as much because I have so much to read as more than I’m avoiding them.
At any rate: You know I read a lot of grandma poetry. This is the equivalent grandpa… short stories? The book title says Short Story Adventures, but I’m not 100% sure these are not just reminisciences and memories jotted down. As I said previously, I think he dictates these in text-to-speech and does not read/edit the result. So they’re in the vernacular but also the unproofed vernacular. I didn’t have trouble reading them having just gone through The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, half of which were in a different vernacular, but I got used to reading phonetically and not based on words.
So the… stories… in this book cover a lot about growing up in rural Missouri in the middle part of the last century, so you know that’s catnip to me anyway. A couple of pieces are clearly nonfiction as they lament the current state of the country and particularly one past president (unnamed) who apparently does not love the country. Heaven help us that we don’t come to a time where someone could read the book and think “Which one?” but if that comes to pass, we probably won’t have a country anyway.
So: Okay, quick read, 158 pages of pretty good print. A quick Internet search indicates the author might still be alive. Good on’ ‘im, and I bet he’s still writing if he can.
