Pull Me Up: A Memoir

I was a bit skeptical when I started reading PULL ME UP. I have recently read more than my normal quota of memoirs and decided I would stop reading if I got bored. I finished the book in three sittings. Dan Barry has given us a slice-of-life story that took me back to the days of my childhood, places I had long forgotten. We are the same age, and have experienced similar experiences, so I could relate to the timing and maturity level of his life, but I think that even if that were not the case I would have loved the book. It had the effect on me that I experience when an old song comes on the radio that I haven't heard in ten years. I was taken back in time to the rooms, the smells, and the time that was my childhood. And for that I am grateful.

Like Dan Barry, I am a 45-year-old newspaper reporter who survived cancer. We were colleagues for a while at the Providence Journal, where I still work. For disclosure, I'll say we worked in different bureaus and were neither friendly nor unfriendly.I was some surprised last year when a mututal friend said Dan had sold his memoirs; I figured Dan was neither old, nor accomplished, nor novel enough to write a good book about his life. I was wrong.Dan has writen a book that will appeal to many audiences. Journalists will like this book for it is a paean to small town newspapering; baby boomers will like the book for its evocative power to summon an era, our era; Irish Americans will nod knowingly as they read Pull Me Up, as will anyone ever enrolled in a Catholic school; infertile couples will feel a pathos in this book, and draw sustenance from it; people who have, or know someone who has, cancer will find in this book hope. Anyone who likes to read and has lived will like Pull Me Up. Sentence by sentence the writing is first rate. I have one structural critcism that would improve the book, but this small flaw does not prevent me from bestowing the highest ranking: I would have omitted the epilogue and changed the verb tenses in the last, short chapter to present tense so that the book would end on the sentence: This is good.

I worked with Dan Barry from 1984-7 at the Journal Inquirer newspaper in Manchester, CT, a period he depicts in his book. Dan Barry was an outstanding talent then and an outstanding talent now. The prose is written in the descriptive style, punctuated by cynical wisecracks, that made his writing so enjoyable at the JI. Though it happened a few months after I left, I was stunned for a moment to see the name in print again of a fellow reporter who was murdered at the paper and had to put the book down a second to regain my composure. I lived through the ordeal from a distance from friends still at the paper. I found Dan's account of the tragedy very moving. I was deeply touched. A must read, couldn't put it down.

I feel like I grew up with Dan Barry after reading just a few chapters. I truely loved it and want to know if he has any other books in print. I know I'll read anything he writes for the N.Y.Times after reading his book.

Dan Barry's "Pull Me Up" is a gem: gracefully written, honestly reported and filled with perfectly drawn portraits of the unforgettable characters of his life. Barry writes with Frank McCourt's grit and Alice McDermott's elegance, mixing them together into something unique and wonderful and memorable. This is a powerful book.