Blueberry Summers: Growing Up at the Lake

What a pleasure to read an old-fashioned, heart-felt, utterly sentimental memoir with the power and poetry to evoke the innocence, happiness, and yes, disappointments of childhood and growing up in a family that...mattered. Anderson captures the essence of the whole experience in language that flows effortlessly and often lyrically from the first joyous to the final rather sad pages. What ever happened to no-nonsense writing like this?

Curtiss Anderson has done for the Minnesota Lake Country what Peter Mayle did for Provence and Frances Mayes for Tuscany -- transported me there on winged words and introduced me to the sights, sounds, and scents not to mention characters both comical and crochety. Of course the Lake Country of Anderson's youth ('30s and '40s) is what gives this memoir its particular magic plus the author's own poetic prose: "Nature would always challenge, threaten, protect, and entertain us with its sweet and sad surprises," Anderson writes. "Things would happen that had never happened before and would never happen again. That is the essence of wilderness and wildlife." Who can forget Clara Johnson and her famous doughnuts (Anderson shares that recipe on page 27), dear old Great-Aunt Ingaborg who was "Norsk to the bone," or young Sarah Schumacher who in the adolescent Anderson's eyes "was the most exquisitely created human being who ever lived?" Each of them is as unforgettable as the entire cast of characters from Anderson's extended Norwegian family. Anderson's coming-of-age summers beside a northern Minnesota lake will resonant with everyone who grew up in the age of FDR, rumble seats, and water pumps constantly in need of priming. As for the younger generation, I'd make BLUEBERRY SUMMERS required reading if only to prove that it's possible to have fun deprived of play stations, paintball fights, and virtual TV.

In my memory, summer always stretched out like a lazy dog. I read books in a sacred spot under the canopy of a cottonwood tree, rolled in freshly-mown grass, and ran against the chinook wind, spreading my arms wide and hoping to fly. Anderson's book brought back those magic moments. I read it slowly, savoring my own memories as inspired by his.

This was a delightful,carefree book to read for summer enjoyment. The insight into Curt's boyhood and his relationship with his parents and their friends was so well done. You just felt like you were on the lake fishing sometime. I recommend.

This book is so magically written that it will transport you to a lakeside paradise you will never want to leave. You'll believe Anderson's memories are yours, too -- you'll recall that blue heron by the beaver dam and remember with delight Aunt Clara's Blue Boy Pie (stuffed with raspberries and blackberries, too -- not just blueberries!). What sets this book apart from other fine works of nostalgia is that this guy can write. Imagine a Garrison Keillor tale as told by Truman Capote. EXAMPLE: "Clara fried small sunfish with their delicate bones so perfectly that the skeleton lifted away like a widow's veil. She dusted northern pike and walleye with seasoned four and allowed them to linger in her vintage wrought-iron skillet with the timing of a Barrymore." Now add to this recipe the monsters of childhood, the circus antics of family and the terror of a boy suddenly drowning in a lake he once hoped would embrace him forever. You will not stop flipping these pages.