Gibson's elegy for his parents is a rare book that aims to weight itself down with emotion and language, yet achieves through the sheer force of storytelling delivers a book to cherish. In the telling the story of his Depression-era childhood and his optimistic hard luck parents, the author does more than simply paint a vivid picture of a lost world. Gibson is positing a religion of the family. The family, Gibson believes, with its pain, joy, constraints, challenges and triumphs, is the most, if not only, humanizing force in the universe.

Gibson's method of storytelling is unconventional but effective. Despite being a playwright by trade, he does not set elaborate scenes. There is scant dialogue. He favors anecdotes and tells a tale the way you would to someone at a funeral or on a barstool. He never goes for a cheap effect, never dresses up his story or character to make them funnier or more interesting or more philosophical. The result is a tale that is devastatingly authentic. ( )