Taking America Out of the Boy
Publisher: Hodder Headline Australia
Published: July 1, 1993
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 304
ISBN-13: 9780340584491
Subjects: Biography & Autobiography; General & Literary Fiction
First sentence: The tires of the one-tonne pick-up drummed the corrugated dirt road north of Papunya, kicking up a cloud of thick, red dust that billowed out behind the vehicle like smoke and would still be there, hanging in the hot dry air, ten minutes after we'd passed.
Description: I belonged and yet I didn't belong... I was overly enthusiastic and used my hands too much when I spoke. Women didn't frighten me. I didn't have to prove anything. I was always saying too much even when I wasn't talking. There were things I didn't like about America, and I didn't mind telling people. Sometimes they didn't believe me. There was a rumour going round that I was CIA. I was a know-all, yet I knew nothing. I never called anyone "boss"....

Told in the style of an oral storyteller, TAKING AMERICA OUT OF THE BOY is a tale of discovry and self-transformation; a funny, insightful and often poignant account of a misplaced person, his exile and his return. To anyone who has wondered where they belong or how they fit in, Billy Marshall Stoneking's delightful "auto-fictography" (the author's word for it) might very well be a signpost on the way home.