num_pages: 237
description: In the Southern storyteller tradition, Larry Larance has written about his boyhood in the small South Arkansas town of Warren. Miss Myrtle's Boy is a deceptively simple depiction of a youngster's coming of age in a very different time and place, the almost idyllic mid-America community of the 1940s and '50s. Larance masterfully takes us back to Warren during a period when "traditional systems of authority were accepted, prices remained reasonable, jobs plentiful and inflation low." His tales about boyhood adventures, misadventures and experiences are evocative of family situations in "Ozzie &amp; Harriet" and "Leave it to Beaver." Warren was a community where everyone knew everyone, and young Larance was known as Miss Myrtle's boy. From getting to know the lumberyard night watchman, to blowing up a family chicken with a cherry bomb, Larance's Arkansas tales take us beyond the white picket fence of his modest boyhood home, and give us a new appreciation for mayhaws, pink tomatoes, squirrel mulligan and fishing on Pair-O-Geese for Gasper Ghouls. His observations and anecdotes are spiced with little lessons for life, all served up in a convincing and entertaining narrative, especially for those who can relate to that uncomplicated period of American history and the small town milieu. There may be few boyhoods left like the one portrayed in Miss Myrtle's Boy.
language: English
title: Miss Myrtle's Boy
titlecomplete: Miss Myrtle's Boy
publisher: Windchimes Pr