Turns: A Collection of Memoir Chapbooks

Author's Summary

MWSA Review

When I received the book, my first question was, what exactly is a chapbook?  According to Wikipedia, a chapbook is a pocket-sized booklet. The term “chap-book” was formalized by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera (disposable printed material), popular or folk literature. Many different kinds of literature have been made into chapbooks, such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, folk tales, children's literature and almanacs. When illustrations are included in chapbooks, they are considered popular prints. The term is derived from chapmen, chap coming from the Old English céap meaning "deal, barter, business", a variety of peddler, who circulated such literature as part of his stock. The term is also in use for present-day publications—usually poetry—up to about 40 pages, ranging from low-cost productions to expensive, finely produced editions.

With my expanded knowledge, I opened the book and found that CoCo Harris, the editor, had selected seven “chapbook” memoirs, each showcasing a different writing style, all of which are well done. Each author uses his or her style to examine a period of his or her life set in, or beginning in, the 1960s or 1970s. From a technical writing perspective, all of the memories are A+.

Readers will each find their favorites, mine was My Two Years in the Priest Corps, it told a story of a man’s early life with a definitive beginning and ending.

Deep Blue: Poems About Navy Life is told through the eyes of the daughter of a Navy pilot as her family follows her father from assignment to assignment as she grows up. A kaleidoscope of experiences in different locations. The poem ends with the end of her dependant status, “Sniped in two my Navy dependent ID, severing forever my first identity.”

Reviewed by: Lee Boyland (2013)