The Next Better Place: A Father and Son on the Road

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Summary: the next better place
Review: I ENJOYED THIS BOOK VERY MUCH,HOWEVER I'M A LITTLE CONFUSED ABOUT MR. KEITH'S DATES. HE SAYS THESE EVENTS TOOK PLACE IN 1959, WHEN HE WAS 11 YEARS OLD. HOWEVER ON THE "AUTHORS NOTE" PAGE IT GIVES HIS YEAR OF BIRTH AS 1945, WHICH WOULD HAVE MADE HIM 14 YEARS OLD AT THE TIME OF THESE EVENTS. ALSO HE MENTIONS SEVERAL TIMES THE SONG FROM THE MOVIE "THE MAGNIFICANT 7". HOWEVER THAT MOVIE WASNT RELEASED TILL THE EARLY 1960'S. NO BIG DEAL. JUST BAD PROOF READING BY THE PUBLISHERS.

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Summary: A Triumph of Memory, a Tempest of Imagination
Review: Smiling ghosts of Mark Twain and Jack Kerouac hover over many pages of Michael Keith's "The Next Better Place." This captivating book places Keith squarely in the same row with America's finest writers of the road adventure story. Which is to say that "The Next Better Place" is so much more than a memoir-cum-novel of a precocious son traversing America's great expanses with an ageing picaro of a father. Keith knows when to embroider his book's perfectly intoned dialogue, tremulous details, and charming teenage bravado with both lyrical pathos and hints at the perverse. The greatest American road novel, Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita," also came to mind as I devoured Keith's book, and I can only hope that Keith will soon reward his readers with another one.

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Summary: Sadly overlooked masterpiece
Review: This is a gentle yet tightly written account, both more poetic and thoughtful than the okay but over-hyped Running With Scissors. Really amazing work coming from a writer who has apparently limited himself previously to technical books about the media .