 King of the Mild Frontier: An Illadvised Autobiography by Chris Crutcher Copyright © April 2003 All rights reserved. Young Adult Published Hard Cover Published by GREENWILLOW BOOKS 250 pages ISBN 0060502495 $16.99 Click here to buy this book. Read an Excerpt "Move over Garrison Keillor, David Sedaris here's a story teller who combines the truths of compassion, anger, humiliation and so much more into a work that not only entertains but helps us to remember our own stories....An honest to goodness gut buster!!!" Becky Wilkins Anderson's Bookshop Chicago, IL "Like Frank McCourt and Tobias Wolff, Chris Crutcher calls up the demons of his past to convey the universal message of hope: that flowers do grow in shit." A. Bitterman Reading Reptile Kansas City, MO. "Chris Crutcher's outrageous tales of being a little brother, a young scholar, a doomed outdoorsman, and an athlete of questionable repute caused me to convulse with laughter to the point where my head started to hurt, and I began figuring that just one more story like the last one and I'd surely pee my pants." Richie Partington, http://richiespicks.com. To read the balance of the review, click HERE. "Crutcher's new book KING OF THE MILD FRONTIER is a memoir of an all too familiar road to adulthood. It is honest, disarming, hilarious, poignant and not for one second boring." Patricia Kindermann, Director Embracing the Child www.embracingthechild.org "Crutcher has done a stunning job of baring his heart, his soul, and his funny bone. Alternately, and sometime simultaneously, hilarious, touching, insightful, and charming, the stories he tells will appeal to readers, writers, and anyone else with a pulse. After reading his bio, I wish I'd grown up next door to him. Or, for the sake of my safety, maybe just a bit farther down the block". David Lubar, Author DUNK & HIDDEN TALENTS www.davidlubar.com "Gore's big on therapist Chris Crutcher's 'King of the Mild Frontier,' a humorous, heartbreaking look at childhood difficulties." Geeta Sharma Jensen, referencing Elly Gore, Schwartz buyer. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jan. 26, 2003 Excerpt Foreface (Couldn't decide whether it was a Foreword or a Preface) Before anything else, let me declare that I acquired my coonskin cap through the miracle of roadkill. No single raccoon was slaughtered for the frivolous purpose of linking my autobiography to the late, great Davy Crockett. In fact, a family of raccoons regularly passes through my cat door, unchallenged, on their way to a sumptuous all-you-can-eat meal of Fancy Feast gourmet cat food and I caught them the other day surround my cap, heads bowed reverently. If you haven't seen a circle of reverent raccoons, you haven't lived. At any rate, they seemed not to begrudge my ownership. I began writing this autobiography in response to the question all authors hear more than any other, and few answer adequately: "Where do you get your ideas?" (I've had little luck with, "Pocatello, Idaho," as an answer, and not much more with, "The same place you get your.") The truth is, I get my ideas from my life, and I thought it might be fun and interesting to highlight some of those times and places. Of course, the original purpose only gets it started, and I wasn't too far into it before I forgot about answering that question and began to delight and grimace at my remembrances. Given that memory is selective, this book probably contains as much fiction as any of my novels, and of course I will say that to the members of the legal community representing my siblings and others who may take issues with the accuracy of my recall. My brother will deny at the gates of Heaven that he ever gunned me down like an electronic arcade toy, and my sister might well take issue that it was ever her habit to "rifle through her stools." I can certainly imagine I'll have some 'splainin' to do to my good wonderful friend Paula Whitson. But exact accuracy aside, the heart of my life is here. There was far more to my father than the calculating teacher, more to my mother than her responses to the stranglehold and heartbreak of addiction. Nothing is black and white. But it was fun and provocative to play with the arbitrary threads of my life that presented themselves to weave into my personal story. Please know, dear reader, that if you believe you see yourself within these pages, I will deny with my dying breath that I ever knew you. A Sneak Preview Courtesy of HarperCollins/Greenwillow The day my athletic image changes forever, we have just received our new purple and gold sweats (gold top, purple pants). After finishing a set of quarter-mile "sprints" that leave me convulsing on my hands and knees, welcoming an imagined crippling car accident in which I lose my legs and therefore am not required to endure this madness anymore, I pull myself together to stumble for the showers. As I walk over the rise next to the high school gymnasium, I see the girls in one of their three practices leading up to their softball Playday. At bat is Ellen Breidenbach, a solid, strong girl who appears as if she could hit the ball to Boise. On second base is Paula Whitson, the girl to whom I've been silently pledging my love since first grade. In a school with a population of just over a hundred, it's probably an overstatement to say she doesn't know I exist, but it's no overstatement at all to say that from a romantic standpoint, she doesn't care. As I move closer to the action, I hear Ellen telling the girls she wants to bat, but doesn't want to run the bases and suddenly I understand the meaning of the word "purpose" in the Christian sense. God has placed me exactly here, exactly now for a purpose. He wants me to get to second base with Paula Whitson. |
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