Having recently re-read Richard Wright’s “Black Boy,” I am struck by the parallels and affinities between it and “Closing Time.” As boys both Wright and Queenan were poor, often to the point of having little or nothing to eat; both had bad relationships with their father; both were driven to read at a very early age, read everything they could, and set their hearts on the writing life. It is possible to rise up from poverty, but it takes a rare soul to do so, and a force of will that those of us who are more fortunate are ill-equipped to understand.
Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post reviews Joe Queenan’s Closing Time.
