I'll Be Damned If I'll Die in Oakland: A Sort of Travel Memoir

He establishes early on that he doesn't hate Oakland and it proves a touchstone for him in many ways. Al has a way of writing a sentence with such vivid description that it makes you feel like you are part of the story. As a long-time fan I couldn't wait to get my hands on this book, and I laughed out loud many times, just as I often laugh at his bi-weekly columns in the LA-by god-Times. Don't expect it to be a formal, Fodor-guide-type travel memoir. It's as much fun for the reader as many of those trips must have been for the Martinez family. Read it for the style and the interesting characters you'll meet along the way. You won't be disappointed.

This is the most unconventional, surprising, funny, and revealing travel(?) book I've ever put my hands on -- an account of the author's personal encounters with the world's historic, oft-chronicled and visited places-- yes, and people -- with a perspective that no one but Martinez has dared introduce. Instead of Steinbeck's, "Travels with Charlie," this is Martinez' "Travels with Cinelli," his patient and forgiving wife, his children,and ultimately his grandchildren. Be prepared to stay up late to read this one, because it's hard to put aside. My wife kept ME up late when she was reading it because women will sympathize with and relate to "Cinelli" just as much as men will appreciate Martinez.

What a delight! Al Martinez writes with an intimacy and clarity that allows the reader to share very personally in his adventures and misadventures. He combines a wry wit with a talent for painting word pictures that convey the sights and sounds of his travels. And not just his travels to foreign countries, but in a few touching vignettes, he invites the reader into scenes from his personal life journey. I fell in love with his intrepid wife, Cinelli, just from the marvelous conversations he records, where she zeroes in on him time after time with just the right words. What a sharp lady! "I'll Be Damned If I'll die in Oakland" is a memorable memoir. I thorougly enjoyed it, and I highly recommend it to the discriminating reader who savors language and words put to good use.

If you're looking for a "Europe on $10 a Day" book on travel, "I'll Be Damned If I'll Die in Oakland" probably isn't for you.If you want to read an exquisite bit of writing on a variety of travels through the mind and eyes of Los Angeles Times columnist Al Martinez, pull up a chair and get ready for some wonderful reading. You'll meet his wife, Cinelli, and their children and grandchildren who have made various journeys with him.Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown probably won't like the title, but he doesn't read anything in English, anyway, and Martinez explains the title early on. After that, will carry you along on vacations from the Arctic Circle to the tropics, and on the way will throw in the marvels of modern China or an RV trip to Mexico. The Mexican trip features a loveable foulmouthed teenaged nanny, whose favorite manner of dress is a bra and red panties.Martinez' prose can startle you with its bluntness -- "The 1960s exploded out of history" -- and charm you with its beauty -- "If there is a heaven, I'm sure it's a place where herds of elephants lumber down trails flattened by their massive footsteps, and where the amber eyes of lions speckle the night."But he will never bore you. "I'll Be Damned" is a serious book about travel, and why we need it, wrapped up in a sly smile of introspection. When you sit down with it, be sure you have a dry martini in a glass nearby. I'm sure Martinez will share its sparkle with you as you enjoy the journey with him.

I'll Be Damned If I'll Die in Oakland isn't your ordinary travel book. For one thing, author Al Martinez seems incapable of writing anything ordinary, as anyone knows who follows his biweekly column in the Los Angeles Times or has read his many other books and magazine pieces or seen the tv shows and movies he's written. A good writer can surprise and delight, and Martinez has the gift. One of his specialties is what I think of as The Turn. You're reading about one thing and suddenly it turns to something else, something deeper, an anecdote, say, that starts out funny and ends up touching the soul or illuminating the human condition. The Turn blind-sides you. A good example is the story of Private X and the candy-striped dog from the chapter on Korea. Actually, travel to Korea appears twice, once in the beginning, when Martinez was a combat Marine there, and again a half century later when he revisits the place with his loving and, by his own account, long-suffering wife Cinelli. With children (and eventually grandchildren) in tow, Martinez and Cinelli travel to Mexico, Europe, Africa, Russia, China. They travel from one end of the United States to the other, eventually even reaching our northernmost city, Barrow, Alaska. Martinez' accounts of their travels are full of delight and the joy of discovery, tremendous storms, lost luggage, lions roaming African campsites, language barriers, wonderful description and colorful characters. Whether an individual tale is touching, sad, hilarious or a combination, it will definitely take you someplace you've never been before or, if you've been there, show you a side you never saw. But as the subtitle suggests, this is more than a travel book; it's a memoir whose framework happens to be travel around the globe but whose real purpose is to chronicle a journey through life. As the author says, "Time marches through this book like a determined tourist." It ticks away the years from a boyhood in Oakland with a mean-drunk stepfather and a mother filled with wanderlust and lies, to a young man's terrifying experiences in combat, through the early days of marriage and children and newspapering and the adventures and travels of a life well-lived and well-observed, to a present, finally, of pacemakers and thoughts of retirement, but a present, too, of more trips planned and more grandchildren awaiting an introduction to the wonder of far-off places.I'll Be Damned If I'll Die in Oakland overflows with the wonders of those far-off places and the wonders of the human heart. If you love good writing, if you like laughing out loud or wiping away the occasional tear, I cannot recommend this book too highly. Tick, tick, tick.