A Sort of a Saga

Bill Mauldin

"First published in 1949, nothing quite like this volume of personal history has ever appeared--except for Mauldin's recent sequel to this book, The Brass Ring: A Sort of a Memoir, which was an instant success and a Book-of-the-Month Club Selection. We have here a notable piece of Americana: To read it is to learn what it was like to be a boy in a family in New Mexico in the '20s, a family which always managed to be broke. Pop, whose 'projects,' as he liked to call them, included everything from tourist cabins and gold mines to the dynamiting of swamps, is the dominant character. Pop's two sons, Bill and Sid, and his uncomplaining wife make up the supporting cast. And support they do. Mauldin's first memory is (at the age of three) of being seated on the bank of a small Mexican river smoking a pack of pilfered cigarettes. With some connection made between nicotine and memory, the saga...