A Strong West Wind: A Memoir

by Gail Caldwell

Book Overview

In this exquisitely rendered memoir set on the high plains of Texas, Pulitzer Prize winner Gail Caldwell transforms into art what it is like to come of age in a particular time and place. A Strong... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812972562
• ISBN13: 9780812972566
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Random House Trade
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A moving story brilliantly written

This memoir is so much more than just a how-I-grew-up story. It's worth reading just for its emotionally riveting narrative of Caldwell's youth in Texas, but what made it leap to my Top Ten list were two things: the way Caldwell lassoes and corrals the bright, dangerous zeitgist of the Vietnam era, and the lyrical originality with which she writes. Caldwell's sentences are themselves works of art, full of careful but exuberant diction, a subtle rhythm she calls "the necessary meters of the heart," and metaphors so perfect you have to stop in the road and pick them up and turn them over in your hand. She takes us from the happy childhood of a girl who loved books, through the fire of adolescent rebellion in the 60s and the shaky but determined departure for parts unknown, to the grace of a mature woman making sense of the past she fled and the people who both defined home and forced her to leave it. Caldwell even made me want to visit Texas, and nothing literary or real has even done that before.

Gene Hull's "gene scene book reviews"

If you are a writer or a discerning reader, you really should read this book! If you appreciate inspiring, non-cliche prose, GAIL CALDWELL'S A STRONG WEST WIND is a must-read. In fact, it is a must-read twice. Her story fascinates. But it is the richness and density of her writing that makes it live and captivates the reader. This is a flat-out outstanding work of high prose and perception, rendered with down-to-earth honesty that isn't always what you want to hear. Peppered with multi-demensional imagery, the sheer beauty of her gutsy account inspires awe. The saga of a brilliant, willful, yet sensitive child-of-the-50s-and-60s and her uneasy oddysey to find her true calling captures the essence of the times better than anything I know. Caldwell's skill with language is deceptively simple. Words are her instrument. The thoughts sound. The cadences flow like a fine jazz musician improvises. And like a musician, a coarse grittiness takes hold at times and shakes you from your reverie. Love good writing? Read it. Highly recomended. However, if you're a 'good ole boy', don't bother. You might be tone deaf or too set in your ways to appreciate what's happening here.

An Extraordinary Writer

Having my own roots firmly ensconced in the barren desolation of the Texas panhandle, I seemed drawn like a magnet to this book. When I picked it up and read that the author was of the same age as I, putting it down was no longer an option. Driven to see how this neighboring girl of the thriving metropolis of Amarillo (my childhood was of a more pastoral ranch setting) viewed her early life on the southern plains pushed my interest beyond the level of resistance. What I found inside A STRONG WEST WIND by Gail Caldwell was an astonishing array of similarities to my own early existence, yet creating polar opposite results in later years. Caldwell's early cognizance of life in the panhandle mirrored my own on so many levels; both having a deep love of books, considering in some innate way our own domicile to be the center of the universe, an unquestioning admiration for our fathers, an upbringing deeply rooted in faith; and yet, despite these similarities, our own personal end results of world views hold gaping divergence. I was at once, saddened by this book; that Caldwell would deviate so far from her conservative upbringing to embrace such things as war protests and the women's movement; and simultaneously touched by her visions of life and the poignancy of her perspectives. This is illustrative proof that personal discernment is in no way predicated on circumstantial similarity. Though our views of the world are as far removed as is imaginable, I felt a kinship to the author and must admit with clarity that she is a brilliant and poetic writer. It has been thousands upon thousands of printed pages since I have found a wordsmith whose prose flowed with such emotion and fluidity. Political and social differences aside, it would be disingenuous of me and I would be failing to accurately represent this book if I did not give it the 5 stars it deserves.

A Strong West Wind: A Mighty Memoir

If you want the opposite of James Frey--that is, if you want to read beautiful, true prose that doesn't flinch from the deeper truths, read Caldwell. This is a book about West Texas, growing up, leaving home, struggling with family, remembering the farm, hating Vietnam, going to Mexico, reading great books, moving forward. I put a pot of coffee on and read through the night, then passed it on to my Dad, who did the same. Thanks, Ms. Caldwell.

A poignant and thought-provoking memoir

In A STRONG WEST WIND, author Gail Caldwell divides her life into parts: the first thirty years spent in Texas, and what came after that, her post-Texas life. She continually interweaves the lives of her parents --- who came of age during a world war --- with hers, which was shaped by the turbulent '60s. Gail was born in the Bible Belt of the Texas Panhandle in 1951. Stricken with polio shortly before the discovery of the Salk vaccine, learning to stand up, then remain upright and eventually walk was a real struggle for this tenacious young girl. Her sister Pam, older by two years, taught Gail to read at age four, and this opened the door to a magical world for her. She seemed to absorb books; they were her escape as well as her internal destination. Gail was a shy child in a fairly boring town where the winds howled ominously and the horizon seemed to go on forever. She loved fiction, especially war novels; as a teenager she wrote sad poetry and dreamed of leaving the barren Texas landscape behind her. The quiet bookworm rebelled as adolescents often do. Smoking, rock-and-roll, and hanging out with friends became her new interests. Her first serious boyfriend --- who appropriately could be called a parent's nightmare --- hung around for two years. The lifelong closeness she had felt to her father dissolved as he and Gail seemed to be on opposite sides of every issue. She enrolled at Texas Tech, but her years of serious reading did not translate into her being a model student. She switched majors every semester and was more interested in world events, especially the Vietnam War, than her studies. She was arrested in 1970 for possession of marijuana; the charges were later dropped but the arrest widened the schism with her father. Gail drifted into the antiwar movement and moved to Austin to attend the University of Texas. In the summer of 1971 she hitchhiked to Berkeley and wandered around for several weeks, absorbing both the atmosphere and the philosophy of the area. She returned to college, only to drop out just weeks shy of graduation. Gail seemed at loose ends. She spent some time in Mexico with friends, participated in the women's movement, and even played in an all-girl honky tonk band. Finally she returned to the University of Texas, where she was an American Studies student in graduate school. Against the backdrop of Gail's growing up and rebellion, she contrasts the lives of her family both as she perceived them as a young child and how she eventually came to understand the reality. It's quite clear that the author believes we are heavily influenced by our geographic landscape, by the books we read and internalize, and by the obligations and restrictions placed upon us at developmentally critical times in our lives. By looking back through her life in an in-depth, soul-searching manner, Gail seems to have arrived at a solid appreciation of her family as well as an understanding of the complexities that shape us all. --- Review