cover image The King My Father's Wreck: A Memoir

The King My Father's Wreck: A Memoir

Louis Simpson, Patricia McDowell. Story Line Press, $14.95 (202pp) ISBN 978-0-934257-32-9

In this memoir Simpson (People Live Here), the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, reflects on his childhood in Jamaica; the force of imperialism; his Russian-Jewish forebears and complicated family; his emigration to the U.S.; and his career as a writer and teacher. The book is organized as a series of asides which, gradually gaining momentum and significance, allow Simpson a liberty of scope in exploring his memories. He can sound an intransigent note: D.H. Lawrence ``reminds me of a tour guide. He is wearing a pith helmet and khaki shorts that expose knobby knees and scrawny legs.'' Or: ``I have never enjoyed politics-it's like going to the bathroom, something you have to do but not to be lingered over.'' His observations on contemporary publishing and writing are sometimes similarly fierce: ``In the United States poetry is a business like any other.'' Simpson's insistent voice gives his self-portrait a more dramatic emotional topography than most, mingling outrage with regret and celebration as moods and themes. He is never not himself, and that self is full of temperament, rewarding adventurous readers. (Dec.)