Pollard’s deft inclusion of all the pandemic’s practical and political challenges--masks, vaccines, social distancing, the strain on shared home WiFi networks, long separations from aging parents, the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and January 6--is wrapped in the inventive framework of prophecies. Irresistible and also oddly reassuring for all who have come through (so far) to the other side of COVID’s miseries.
The author’s use of cited local history books in libraries along his journey gives the book a strong factual basis as a history text, and his incorporation of literary words from writers of the flatboat era infuse his own writing with humor and poetic charm. Highly recommended for all libraries.
This is a charming and sad memoir, reminding readers of life’s inevitabilities, the beauty of the journey, and the lesson to hold on to those close to them with a fierceness.