Rating: 
Summary: Freedom!
Review: Young bum-in-training Eddy Joe Cotton takes us along on his journey to freedom, riding the rails, scrounging for food in trash cans, freezing in boxcars, staring out at deserts and fields of grain for days at a time, and of course meeting fellow travellers. You never know what filthy old bum you will run into at a hobo gathering or what words of wisdom you will glean in between slugs of cheap wine. Filthy dirty? Yes - but free! Going noplace? Yes - but free! Picking through half smoked cigarette butts in order to roll your own? Yes - but free! Free, free, free! Well, if that's your idea of a good life, welcome to it. This book actually was pretty entertaining and informative. It does seem like a carefree, if uncomfortable, way of living, and nothing terribly bad seemed to happen to the author. There are also plenty of women who take an interest in this sort, though none of them stick around for long, having issues of their own. Good luck, Eddy Joe Cotton, I'll be thinking of you every time I hear the train whistle in the distance at night.
Rating: 
Summary: Read the Glossary first in case you don't make it to the end
Review: Young man from unconventional upbringing hits the rails in search of adventure and identity, changes given name of Zebu Recchia to Eddy Joe Cotton, and meets the voluntary outcasts and throw-aways of American culture. Cotton doesn't say when he first read Jack Kerouac, but the influence is palpable (though Cotton is no Kerouac) in the protagonist's need for adventure, occasionally Whitmanesque writing style, and the self-observation that makes autobiographical writing possible. Chronicling his own perceptions as well as stories of the characters he meets, Cotton loves, suffers, triumphs, and continues to grow while on the road, but I lost interest about halfway into it and finished the book in one fast flip-through. The Glossary, however, is an astonishing feat of hobo and tramp lingo and lore. I read the entire 30-page Glossary before beginning the book proper, and I was so glad I did. Not only did it make the story more comprehensible, it was also the most rewarding and informative part of the book.
|
