I Was Looking for a Street: A Memoir

This is not a bad book at all. It is the story of Charles Willeford, the clever creator of the Hoke Moseley crime series, when he was riding the rails (living on the road and catching trains by hopping onto them as they moved) as an early teen (about 12-14). It is not a long book (about 140 pages) and worth the time reading about the authors experiences in the Great Depression. If I had to nitpick, it would be that the writer doesn't really tell attention grabbing stories, they are ok but not the kind of stories that you remember after the book is finished.

Charles Willeford was America's finest writer of crime fiction -- and other kinds of fiction. If you haven't read Willeford yet, what are you waiting for? Quick -- drop that latest piece of trash about a Vatican conspiracy involving Italian Renaissance painters and frozen alien fossils or whatever -- and track down one or more of the following: "The High Priest of California", "Wild Wives", "The Black Mass of Brother Springer", "The Woman Chaser", "Cockfighter", "The Burnt Orange Heresy", "Miami Blues", "New Hope for the Dead", "Sideswipe", "The Way We Die Now", "Kiss Your A-- Good-bye", "The Shark-Infested Custard", or anything else by Willeford, including the above autobiographical title, "I Was Looking for a Street". Though most of Willeford's work could be classified as crime fiction, two of his finest novels ("High Priest of California", "Cockfighter") don't really focus on crime at all. Some writers use too much dialogue, others use too much description. Willeford strikes a perfect balance -- before you get past the first page, you know you're in for a great read. Willeford demonstrates what great writing is: great plots, characters, dialogue, prose style -- and you get to learn all kinds of valuable information about things like the used car business and art criticism.

In I Was Looking for a Street, Charles Willeford (1919-1988) tells in straightforward fashion what his early life was like. Orphaned by age 8 and a rail riding drifter by age 13, Willeford's childhood was a tough one. But there isn't an ounce of bitterness in this memoir. Instead of cursing his misfortune, Willeford sees each setback he endured, no matter how terrible, as a learning experience. With a minimal amount of sentimentality, Willeford tells how the middle class life he was born into rapidly evaporated when tuberculosis claimed both his parents and, a few years later, the Great Depression thrust his beloved grandmother Mattie into poverty. He goes on to compellingly describe his life as a "road kid" among the hobos and tramps who hopped freight trains in a never ending journey to absolutely nowhere. Fans of Willeford's novels and short stories will definitely want to read this short but amazing autobiography. Told with the author's trademark matter-of-fact style, the anecdotes contained in I Was Looking for a Street are quite interesting and reveal a lot about the origins of Willeford's unique worldview. Highly recommended.