Review: A Wonderful Memoir To Have On Your Shelf
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 25, 2013
I'm a huge fan of memoirs. I don't know if this is because I write Creative Non-Fiction myself, if I want to know that I relate to another person, or if I'm simply a voyeur, curious about the lives other people have led. It's probably a combination of the three.At any rate, I've read a lot of memoirs and personal essays over the years - some of been great, others good, some appalling bad in that I find them whiney and ultimately lacking in self-reflection. Everything Will Be All Right falls into the very first category. Author Douglas Wallace has a fantastic voice as he weaves the tale of his life, and that of his family, as he makes his way out of the poverty he was born into and finally fulfilling his goal of becoming a lawyer. Never once did I come across anything that was anything other than matter-of-fact and straightforward, even in those instances where he could have easily embellished the facts without anyone being the wiser.While I didn't grow up in abject poverty nor face any abuse as a child as Wallace did, I still found quite a number of things I could relate to, which is my top goal of reading a memoir. I had to grin a bit at his descriptions of Fort Polk, Louisiana, having spent time there myself as a kid living just outside the base in Leesville, and his descriptions of military life, while vastly different from my own (he was active duty, I was a Brat) I could still relate to his anecdotes of drill instructors and how things work in the military. I also found myself very affected by his sense of being the Other, somehow always on the outside of where he wanted to be.If you're a fan of memoirs in general, this is a wonderful one to have on your shelf. If you feel stuck in a situation you can't seem to pull yourself out of, I recommend it even more. Douglas Wallace has encountered odds that many people face, but not enough have been able to find their way over them, for whatever reason. You might find yourself encouraged enough to discover you're stronger than you think.