Dangerous Water: A Biography Of The Boy Who Became Mark Twain

by Ron Powers

While Mark Twain remains one of our most quintessentially American writers, the actual boyhood experiences that fueled his most enduring literature remained largely unexplored—until now. Twain's early years were a decidedly un-innocent time, marked by deaths of friends and family and his father's bankruptcy. Twain dealt with those personal tragedies through humor and the tall tale. From the time that a ten-year-old Samuel Clemens lit out on his own and boarded his first Mississippi steamer to his first encounter with a traveling "mesmerizer" (which ignited his lifelong penchant for acting and spectacle), from the brooding sense of guilt and fear of eternal damnation inculcated into him at church to the superstitions and stories of witchcraft he learned from the blacks on his farm, Powers unforgettably shows how Mark Twain was shaped by the distinctly American landscape, culture, and people of Hannibal, Missouri. Jay Parini, the celebrated biographer of Robert Frost, called Dangerous Water "a long-needed evocation of the boyhood of the man who invented boyhood for all time. . . . An immensely shrewd and deeply engaging book, a great gift to all of us who love Twain."

Genres: Biography, Book Club, History

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Ron Powers (born 1941) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, novelist, and non-fiction writer. His face include White Town Drowsing: Journeys to Hannibal, Dangerous Water: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain, and Mark Twain: A Life. With James Bradley, he co-wrote the 2000 #1 New York Times Bestseller Flags of Our Fathers.

Powers won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1973 for his critical writing as TV-radio-columnist for Chicago Sun-Times about television during 1972. He was the first television critic to win the Pulitzer Prize.

In 1985, Powers won an Emmy Award for his work on CBS News Sunday Morning.

Powers was born in 1941 in Hannibal, Missouri — Mark Twain's hometown. Hannibal was influential in much of Powers' writing — as the subject of his book White Town Drowsing, as the location of the two true-life murders that are the subject of Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore, and as the home of Mark Twain. Powers has said that his fascination with Twain — the subject of two of his books — began in childhood:

"When I was a little boy in Hannibal, he was a mystic figure to me. His pictures and books and images were all over (my friend) Dulany Winkler's house, and I spent a lot of time there. I just wanted to reach out and touch him. Eventually I was able to."

In addition to writing, Powers has taught for the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Salzburg Seminar in Salzburg, Austria, and at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont.

Powers is married and has two sons. He currently resides in Castleton, Vermont.

Reviews

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

This biography of Twain covers events experienced by Samuel Clemens that led to his eventually becoming one of the most revered writers in America, Mark Twain. The book seems to focus mostly on events that rather traumatized young Clemens including several deaths in his family and citizens of his boyhood home, Hannibal, Missouri but it also includes the exhilaration of Twain's youth and the friends who were immortalized in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. The book begins with the westward journeys of his grandparents and parents and the arrival of the Clemens family in Missouri just before Twain's birth in 1835. It then follows Twain's days in Hannibal and then on to his experiences as a riverboat apprentice and then towards the end the tragic death of his younger brother, Henry, who was burned and blown into the river after the boiler on a riverboat exploded. Sam's young life was filled with difficulties. His father was distant and moved closer and closer to bankruptcy as he pursued dreams of wealth. His father also owned a slave and slave life was a source of solace to young Sam who enjoyed their stories and songs. Of course this was later used as source material for Huck Finn. "Powers regularly draws convincing links between Twain's early life and events and characters in his fiction, locating Twain's greatness as a humorist in the dynamics of his family, the tragedies that surrounded him, the literary currents of the time and a lifelong love for the varieties of spoken language."

I enjoyed reading this biography of Twain's early years and I thought Powers did a very good job of portraying how Sam Clemens became Mark Twain. There were some parts of the story that were somewhat tedious, however. Powers seemed to focus too much on Twain's hardships and the savagery of mid-nineteenth life in the south. He often used the word "demimonde" (which I had to look up) meaning "a group of people considered to be on the fringes of respectable society." I guess he felt that Twain was frequently among these types of people which he used to formulate much of his story lines including humor. I now feel like I need to read some of Twain's classic works that I've never gotten around to including Life on the Mississippi and Roughing It.

[Barney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly, I want to give it a five star rating. Powers essentially stops the biography at the point where Clemens sets his first line of original type - which is a helluva thing to do, because he is denying himself much of the biographical fun in exchange for ALL of the thankless heavy lifting. For Twain geeks to be sure - but also a lesson to biographers that all subjects CAN be made interesting at all stages of their lives if enough tenacity and talent are brought to the task.

[Dave]

Just finished it. It reads well, and quickly. He really "gets" SLC as a boy, I think. A clever lad who fell in love with language, in part because he worked in a print shop. In other part, because of the wonderful oral culture around him, and his uncanny ear for it.

[Scott Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are a Mark Twain fan, this is a must read. At times a little wordy but it covers Samuel Clemens' childhood and how those events most impacted his writings. Like Clemens, I grew up on the manks of the Mississippi River and the adventures and mystique of the river haunts me to this day. This book is a detail exploration of his fears, fun, family, and friends and how each played its part in bringing us the great writer, Mark Twain.

[Mark Valentine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powers re-creates the age and the people that filled Sam Clemens' life. I think this is an essential biography to read for anyone remotely interested in Mark Twain. I especially enjoyed reading the early printing experience that Sam Clemens had, of learning where the "Jesus H. Christ" swearing came about, of reading about the murders that Sam Clemens witnessed, his near death experiences, his obsessions, his fears, and his hilarities. It is informative, engaging, and genuine.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting biography of Mark Twain and how his childhood affected his life.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. I've read better Twain bios

[Emma · Rating 1 out of 5]

meh. Advertises itself as a history of Mark Twain's childhood but reads like a college essay where the writer is too obviously trying to prove how smart he is on very little factual evidence. I didn't finish it. Life's too short.

[Atchisson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Small hints of Powers' fascination with the subject which ultimately culminated in a later traditional Twain biography. In any event, this is light reading not menat for the serious scholar.

[Bette Pfender · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love anything about or by Samuel Clemens.