text: This book is the equivalent of the Proustian madeleine...to read it is to recover a past long lost. Making the case for the mordant paradigm shift of US morals, ethics and literary tastes, this is the marker past which one can see the sad decline of the quality of art and life in the modern world. I cannot improve on the highly intelligent and sensitive overview given here by reviewer Big Orange "paxbear" and so will not review the book in detail. That it is one of only three Saroyan volumes still in print makes the case for the obsolesence of the clear heart and clear mind in today's mindlessly kinetic world. You can read this book in the time it would take you to go see MI 111 in a cineplex. Carpe diem. Read this instead
  