An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland

by Michael Dirda

A funny, wistful memoir by a Pulitzer Prize--winning critic that recalls the charm of Growing Up and the tenderness of One Writer's Beginnings. "ALL THAT KID WANTS TO DO is stick his nose in a book, " Michael Dirda's steelworker father used to complain, worried about his son's passion for reading. In An Open Book, one of the most delightful memoirs to emerge in years, the acclaimed literary journalist Michael Dirda re-creates his boyhood in rust-belt Ohio, first in the working-class town of Lorain, then at Oberlin College. In addition to his colorful family and friends, An Open Book also features the great writers and fictional characters who fueled Dirda's imagination: from Green Lantern to Sherlock Holmes, from Candy to Proust. The result is an affectionate homage to small-town America--summer jobs, school fights, sweepstakes contests, and first dates--as well as a paean to what could arguably be called the last great age of reading.

Genres: Memoir, Books About Books, Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, Literature, Writing

320 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2003

About the author

Michael Dirda (born 1948), a Fulbright Fellowship recipient, is a Pulitzer Prize–winning critic. After earning a PhD in comparative literature from Cornell University, the joined the Washington Post in 1978.

Two collections of Dirda's literary journalism have been published: Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000; ISBN 0-253-33824-7) and Bound to Please (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005; ISBN 0-393-05757-7). He has also written Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life (New York: Henry Holt, 2005; ISBN 0-8050-7877-0), Classics for Pleasure (Orlando: Harcourt, 2007; ISBN 0-151-01251-2), critical biographical study On Conan Doyle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011; ISBN 0-691-15135-0), which received a 2012 Edgar Award, and the autobiographical An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003; ISBN 0-393-05756-9).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_...

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a longtime fan of Michael Dirda's work in The Washington Post Bookworld, I'm glad I've finally read this memoir of his early years growing up in the steel town of Lorraine, Ohio, albeit some twenty years after it was published.

Lots of reviewers have commented that they prefer the first half, and I think I can pinpoint why. Dirda is generally better at writing about books than writing about people, but the exception to this is the portrayal of his parents in the early chapters. His father, grim and exhausted from his job at the hellish mill, utterly baffled by his bookish son, and his mother, struggling, making the best of things, and entering and winning every possible money saving competition or sweepstakes going, both come vividly to life. By contrast, all Dirda's friends and mentors from high school and college are for the most part just names.

Most of the book is discursive accounts of all the reading young Michael did. The sheer volume (to say nothing of the literary heft) of it all sheds some light on why he grew up to be a Pulitzer Prize winning book critic, and I didn't. At the end he wonders if he perhaps he had read less and written more, he might have actually had a career as a writer rather than a reviewer, but I think the memoir itself makes it clear he followed his best possible path. He admits to having a melancholic nature; it certainly takes one to be wistful about having ended up with a career that's an absolute fantasy for 95% of us here on goodreads!

[Caroline Gerardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was a girl I recall putting a towel under the bathroom door and duct tape at the corners to be able to sit on the floor and read a book all night. My father would enforce lights out, but this trick allowed me to finish beloved stacks from the library ( we were too poor to purchase novels).

I loved this book. I highly recommend you buy and stay up all night to share Michael's (if I may call a man I never met but feel I know from reading his work) story

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Dirda's story of his first nineteen years as a book lover

I really enjoyed this memoir. Though I am twenty years younger than the author and came from a much smaller town than he did, there were a lot of moments when I recognized a similar experience. Memories of huddling down as a child with that new book from the library, excitement as new authors called out from cracked open covers, time spent with friends but mostly and always books.

I became aware of Mr. Dirda thanks to his participation in Readercon (a great SF/fantasy literary convention) and I love the fact that he enjoys genre books just like he obviously adores the classics. I hope he decides to write a memoir of his years from the age of twenty on - I would be there to read that book!

[James Henderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michael Dirda is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Washington Post Book World who has written several books in addition to this one; a great book and a challenge to readers based on his memories of his reading life. It is not only an interesting read but also a source for books to read and reread. Dirda shares the typical stories of how friends and family shaped his life; and he shares the impact of his reading. This is what I enjoyed the most. When he describes his encounter with Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo as a boy I remembered the same experience that I had discovering that great adventure story. By the time he arrived at Oberlin College he was a veteran reader. Again I could identify with his love affair with the college library. In my own case it was the Memorial Library at the University of Wisconsin, where I would get lost in the stacks and find myself reading for hours. The only downside of this passion was that often the book I was reading was not required for my current courses. Somehow I still graduated with honors. Michael Dirda's adventures with books continually brought back fond memories of different yet not too dissimilar personal experiences.

His reading was both wide and deep. He did not discriminate among books with the Green Lantern and Tarzan just as welcome as Raskolnikov and Hamlet. The result is a book that is not only challenging, but also inspirational. One among many positive aspects of this memoir is a listing of books he read in his teen years -- I'm always looking for suggestions for reading even as my own to-read list already seems to be overflowing. Whatever your personal experience, and it's likely that it differs from both mine and Dirda's in the details, I am sure that you will find this memoir a delight and one more reason to read the work of Michael Dirda, one of my favorite literary commentators.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow to get going in his early years, this memoir becomes very enjoyable once Dirda starts discussing the books and mentors that impacted on his early life and development. Michael Dirda is an engaging writer and I have devoured several of his books on lit crit. It was nice to finally learn a little more about the man himself.

[Barbara Mader · Rating 2 out of 5]

I learned that Michael Dirda is still a very insecure and defensive guy--or else his sense of humor needs a fluff-up. I also learned how *not* to write a memoir and how I may come across to others. So I've learned plenty. But I didn't enjoy the book much at all, and I had thought I would.

The book reminded me of Tommy Smothers' remark about Jane Fonda. The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was censored a great deal by CBS, and finally canceled even though it had been picked up for another season. The Smothers Brothers sued CBS and won their lawsuit. Tom Smothers was very sensitive about issues of censorship and became well-known for his stands against censorship and for freedom of speech. But one night he saw Jane Fonda on a talk show or some other tv program, and he saw how her focus on the causes she believed in had left her with no sense of humor on these or basically any other issues. And seeing her, he saw himself, and decided he had to loosen up a bit. Well, maybe in some of Michael Dirda's writing in this book I've seen myself too, and I'm not crazy about what I see. And I know that I would want to avoid the tone he has in this book in any writing of my own.

As an aside, there are some word choices that are supposed to be clever but just sound pretentious and clunky.

As another aside, I just end up feeling kind of sorry for the guy.

[Corey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Dirda is a cousin of mine, and I remember going to my local Borders to hear him speak about this book (and get a signed copy!) when it first came out. It was a treat to finally get around to reading the book and experience his perception of some of my relatives. Marlene and "Cookie" are my aunt and uncle and their sister is my grandmother, the third Kucirek cousin who is, unfortunately, not mentioned! I grew up in Lorain in the 90s, and it's amazing to me that not much has really changed. I can pinpoint nearly all the locations he discusses, and can vouch for myself that Yala's Pizza really is the best!! I consider myself more of a casual reader, so some of the ending chapters where he gives us more of his musings on authors and their works was a little dull for me. Overall, though, the book is a wonderful telling of life in Lorain.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was thoroughly enjoyable since the author and I went to the same high school for one and a half years. Having lived in Lorain county for all my life I knew most of the places he mentioned and many of the people he speaks of. It was a "trip down memory lane".

I am also impressed at his knowledge of literature!

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an autobiography for book lovers. Michael Dirda, best known as a Pulitzer Prize winning critic with the Washington Post, takes on to his childhood growing up poor in small town Ohio. Those who recall the joys of reading when they were young will get caught up in his enthusiasm for books, from comics to serious literature, as he grows from a child to a young man at Oberlin College in the 1960s. It is a enjoyable journey to be on.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dirda is one of our most interesting writers on the subject of reading and its pleasures. In this memoir he was able to articulate how much books and reading meant to his early life in a way that really resonated with me.

[Paul Secor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to imagine anyone who loves to read not enjoying this book.

[K · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a weird and even unsettling book. For a book critic as erudite and thoughtful as Michael Dirda to be so obsessed with girls' bodies is sad, or worse. That's the big theme that came through for me in this memoir of his childhood through college graduation: basically, from the time of about age 11 he spent all his time staring at girls' breasts or thinking about girls in books and magazines. And when he finally got his hands on them in as a high school senior, he felt he had sort of achieved his Everest, and he went back to his books. Creepy.

I have a feeling he'd write this book differently today after the Me-Too era has come into being.

Maybe he'd stick to his guns about girls with round faces and black hair, full-breasted girls or girls well-developed as 9th graders. Or retailing his friend's adage to never judge a girl seen in the dark, from behind or from a distance. I guess he feels it's important to be honest and that there's empowerment for all in his honesty.

But I have a feeling he'd rethink the book. This isn't to say he was cruel to girls or women, or that he has anything to be ashamed of. But I found his one-sided view of women very off-putting, and I realized about 3/4th of the way through that there didn't seem to be a woman teacher or mentor who had any intellectual influence on him, either. I guess he's a product of his time and place --- men did certain things (work & think), and women did other things (clean, cook, provide physical arousal or comfort).

So about that time and place: 1950s working-class Ohio. Not the other side of the tracks, but not the right side of them either. A lonely existence as an intellectual kid in a tough school. And on top of that, the son of a man who worked in a steel fabrication plant and hated every day of it. Dirda's descriptions of his father and mother are poignant -- difficult and angry father, timid mother -- and his description of NE Ohio in the 1950s rings very true. He says at the end of the book that he doesn't consider his childhood to be happy because he wasn't comfortable with his father nor with his peers, but that looking back he realizes he got a lot of good things out of a tough, outsider life. That's a pretty good summary of how a lot of us feel.

Honestly, I didn't get much out of Dirda's thumbnail descriptions of what he read and what it meant to him, even though that would seemingly be the point of the book. Through his teen years, much of the reading he describes is adventure and sci-fi and other middlebrow junk that I didn't read as a kid and wouldn't read today. Where he found adventure, I found a boring lack of reality.

Then he starts peppering in at about age 12 serious literature and the popular novels of the day (James Michener, etc.), his descriptions are not helpful unless you are well-versed in those books yourself. For many, you'd need to be a really sophisticated reader to have ever engaged with them. For the handful that I know, his references are good enough, but they just make me wish he'd spent more time on them and less on the distractions of his youth.

Was it a good life for Dirda? Yes. Did he accomplish a lot? An amazing amount. Is he honest in this book? Very much so, especially about his girl obsessions, how he could get lost for hours in reading, and how he was a stuffy and pretentious kid for much of his youth. But will this book stick with me in any way? No.

[Richa Bhattarai · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this memoir, and I disliked it.

Liked because Dirda is a typical, textbook bookworm I could immediately identify with. A nerd and loner, pathetic in sports and socializing. So taken up with books, he pauses under lampposts on his way home from the library, to read snippets. His repertoire of books and knowledge is vast, vocabulary astounding, and language engaging. This is basically a reminiscence of how the famed book critic began his literary journey, but it's interestingly interspersed with family life, education and romantic adventures. It's also inspiring that despite growing up in a house with no books and little patience for his literary pursuits, Dirda kept at it with a dogged ambition that eventually led him to the Pulitzer Prize.

I didn't like it because I was jealous and anxious about all the books Dirda had read by the age of 14, the majority of which I've not even heard of till date. So many books, so little time, yet he's managed to devour an unbelievable number and quality. Apart from personal grudges, I don't appreciate the way he chronicles his romantic interests. The role he takes on, of talking down to women, sounding slightly disparaging, his choice of words to address them and his escapades, didn't sit well with me. At times, pages pass which have nothing but titles of books and a few lines out of them, making for monotonous reading, but of course unavoidable in a book like this.

A must-read for booklovers looking to expand their horizons, also a good read for anyone who wants a minute, honest and many times touching glimpse into a typical small-town American life decades ago, dotted with lively descriptions of family life, literary endeavours, society and the self. There's so much to know and learn here.

Two favorite new words: recto and verso (the right and left pages of a text). #anopenbook #michaeldirda #memoir #tales #of #bookworm #booklover #growingup #comingofage #america #wordobsession #reader #critic #pulitzerprize #winner #amreading #booklove #readingislife #inspired #me #to #read #more #bookreview #readersofinstagram

[Jeff Zell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dirda tells an amusing and engaging story on himself about how he stumbled onto the path of becoming a literary journalist. He did not have family encouragement to pursue a life of reading and writing. Dirda's parents did not read books. His mother read the Newspaper comics. His Dad read the newspaper after work. There were books in the house but they appeared more by accident than by design.

Dirda traces his development through children's books to comic books to young adult literature to mature literature. As he grew older his Dad grew more frustrated with him because he "always had his nose in a book" when he should have been learning practical skills or learning how to make lots of money so he could have a different kind of work life than he had.

Dirda did eventually work in the same factory as his Dad and did learn additional skills, but he was always drawn to the printed word. Along the way Dirda was also inspired by several teachers and mentors.

Dirda takes us up through his graduation from Oberlin College. There is still more to his story, but that will have to wait for another time.

I think the part of his memoir I enjoyed the most was his time at Oberlin College. At Oberlin he stopped working on natural talent and learned to think and write critically and study harder. He was inspired by the professors and the books that he was studying. He learned to engage deeply.

Dirda's life is a mystery, as all of our lives are. By all rights he should not have gone on for college or for a Ph.D. or become a literary journalist for the Washington Post. But, his memoir reminds us all that in America we do have choices and we are not destined to live the same life as our family of origin.

[L.P. Coladangelo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

Nicely constructed memoir of growing up with a curious, bookish, independent, rebellious streak in contravention of societal expectations of living in the industrial Midwest of the 1950s and 1960s. Clearly hoping (or finding the desire) to rise above (or rise differently) than his surroundings and peers, Dirda discovers his raison d'être (or will to power) in being a wide, deep, assiduous reader, and the book is full of both personal and readerly insights. Fellow bookworms and northeast Ohio baby boomers will cotton to the reminiscences quickly; others need not (or will not want to) apply.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this book. I was given the impression that :Coming of Age in the Heartland” referred to the author’s youth in Lorain Ohio, a place where I resided and almost at the same timeframe as the author. And yes there is some discussion of the author’s time in Lorain growing up as I grew up but much of the book is about the literary masterpieces the author read growing up. Although I’m college educated, that content is something that only slightly interested me. Perhaps that is because of my technical education as opposed to a liberal arts education. Having said that, the accomplishments of the author are quite laudable.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall I enjoyed this book. Its always interesting to hear of someone's life you admire. I have enjoyed Mr. Dirda's book reviews for many years in the Washington Post. This book covers his years growing up in Ohio through early adult. He had lots of adventures!! And it was refreshing to learn of his childhood, which happened to mirror mine in the late '50's early '60's. Some parts went on a bit long--lots on French literature/philosophy and more classical literature--for me. But overall a nice read.

[Dani · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story, about a bookish boy, coming of age in the 50s, is funny, charming and honest. As girl who spent most of her childhood with a book in hand, I relate to the author’s passion for books. However the author is defiantly a prodigy, reading classical books long before I could ever comprehend such a task. Weaving a memoir around the authors love of books was innovative and made the book special.

[Denise Butti]

Michael Dirda born in Lorain, Ohio, writes about growing up and his early years back in the 1950's. As this is also my home town, it was fun reading about the places that I know so well. He is a wonderful author and has a wonderful memory of this town by Lake Erie. It is truly amazing the number of books that he has read and that he can remember all of them.

[Mark Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a person whose main life activity is reading . . . an autobiography unfolds by following the milestones of books read. I loved this book, but then I’ve long felt kinship with Michael Dirda from reading his reviews in the Washington Post over the last two decades. He is, like Roger Ebert, a reviewer with whom I feel simpatico.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always love books by Michael Dirda. His loves are my loves. In this book I find many analogies to my own life. His early readings compare with mine. (We both read the blue childhood biographies of famous Americans.)

I make reading lists from the books he has read and enjoyed.

[Alex O'Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dirda is simply the best. Well read, charming, fascinating; a perfect book.

[Gail Kennon · Rating 4 out of 5]

very enjoyable.

[Austin Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

85/100

[Ronald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book overall. His best chapters were the ones when he talked about the books he found or took out of the library. I had already known he was a Conan Doyle fan from reading a book he wrote about him. I found out a good deal about his reading likes and dislikes in this book. But the thing I liked best was when he described his reading as he went through schools.

I would read another of his books if given the chance.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

PLOT OR PREMISE:
The author is a book reviewer for the Washington Post; this is the story of his life up until graduation from university.
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WHAT I LIKED:
Dirda was recommended to me by a colleague from work, whose appetites for reading are far more literary than mine. He actually recommended Bound to Please, which is a collection of Dirda’s reviews of more literary prose from throughout history, but I tripped over this book first. I’m quite glad I did as I probably won’t read the collection of essays until I’ve read most of the tomes reviewed, but An Open Book is a fantastic autobiography. It reads in some place like Angela’s Ashes without the darkness of Irish poverty. However, it is not without conflict or family dysfunction during the author’s childhood, and he tells the story in places with openness and unashamed personal bias. The main part of the story recounts Dirda’s intellectual progress as he moved through comic strips from the newspaper (p.49), pun and joke books (everyone sing: “great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts”!), the TAB book club (p.66), the Hardy Boys and Tom Swift series (p.90), a brief stint with romance novels (p.201), and the importance of great literature to challenging society and even changing history (p.290). It also includes his non-literary education – playing with BB guns (p.81), understanding firsthand how hard his father’s job was (p.185), learning about art and music (p.267), the ceasing to care about grades when writing essays and the corresponding improvements in marks (p.310), the contribution of early influences in his life to later character traits (p.320), and looking back at one’s life (p.321). The book recounts his life relatively linearly in time, yet with lots of interesting digressions that veer away from developments in his personal life and situation with the texts he was reading at the time.
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WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
It would have been interesting to see more of the reactions from teachers throughout the author’s life, including perhaps even tracking some of them down. It is hard to imagine exactly how certain ones would have reacted to his precocious reading of more advanced novels, and the existing allusions to some of their reactions are rudimentary at best. As well, the final decision (to become a freelance journalist upon leaving university) is rushed in the story, and negates much of the relaxed pace to that point.
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BOTTOM-LINE:
See the early influences on a literary book reviewer
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DISCLOSURE:
I received no compensation, not even a free copy, in exchange for this review. I am not personal friends with the author, nor do I follow him on social media.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Dirda does name drop in this book. The names he drops are all the books he read and how early he read them. But they are the shape of his life and if I could wish to have read Dostoevsky at an earlier age, Dirda notes he can hardly recollect anything from his junior high school reading of Crime and Punishment. He lists some of the books in an appendix at the end of the book: "What follows is the book list I set down in my journal when I was sixteen. It lists, in no particular order, some of the more ambitious works I'd managed to finish by that age, and yes, it does seem at least a little bit pretentious. But I don't think any of these books is beyond the powers of a reasonably diligent teenager. The trick, of course, lies in actually wanting, in being eager, to read them." (323) Dirda read to escape the world of his father, the Ohio steel mills. Growing up amid extended family in working-class Lorain, Ohio, his vigorous reading allowed him to go to Oberlin and create a writing life based on reading (ah, the life of the critic). It is interesting too the importance of teachers and mentors in his own life, who led him more deeply into reading and the literary life. A good summer read, that encourages more reading. I have a ways to go to catch up to Dirda at 16.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

"A love story, full of a passion for literature and marked by intellectual vigor."—Bernadette Murphy, Los Angeles Times (Review from Amazon.)
"All that kid wants to do is stick his nose in a book," Michael Dirda's steelworker father used to complain, worried about his son's passion for reading. In An Open Book, one of the most delightful memoirs to emerge in years, the acclaimed literary journalist Michael Dirda re-creates his boyhood in rust-belt Ohio, first in the working-class town of Lorain, then at Oberlin College. In addition to his colorful family and friends, An Open Book also features the great writers and fictional characters who fueled Dirda's imagination: from Green Lantern to Sherlock Holmes, from Candy to Proust. The result is an affectionate homage to small-town America—summer jobs, school fights, sweepstakes contests, and first dates—as well as a paean to what could arguably be called the last great age of reading.

[Treasure Island Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of Michael Dirda's autobiography is a delight. Time after time I felt that spark of recognition as he recounted the books and comics that led him to become a reader. I knew at some point, our reading would diverge as the books boys chose differed from the books girls chose in the sixties. If An Open Book had ended when he was in high school, I would have given it five-star recommendation. Sadly, for me, the book continued into his college years where Dirda seemed to become an entirely different person. Longing for sophistication, he wrote of the literary works introduced to him by various professors and colleagues, and I was lost. I found it annoying that he indiscriminately switched from first person to third person to describe events that put him into a bad light. More and more as the book progressed, Dirda introduced obscure words that sent me to the dictionary, but didn't make the reading process as pleasurable as it should have been.

[Mary Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the author was an excellent writer, but I must confess that I got "bogged down" at the end. I would have given him four stars based on his skill as a writer....the book just needed to end sooner.