From one of our national treasures (inducted last year into the American Academy of Arts and Letters), Train Whistle Guitar is a deceptively gentle...
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Sep 20, 2011
Richard
rated it: 
Rating: 2.875* of five
The Book Report: Coming of age as an African-American lad in 1920s Alabama. Lightly fictionalized version of the author's memoir, SOUTH TO A VERY OLD PLACE, which is superb and should have been left alone.
My Review: Not a novel. Just not. It's too much like the memoir for me to buy the novel designation. Murray writes beautiful sentences, goodness knows, but his choice to call this fiction is disingenuous. The only thing that really separates this fr More...
The Book Report: Coming of age as an African-American lad in 1920s Alabama. Lightly fictionalized version of the author's memoir, SOUTH TO A VERY OLD PLACE, which is superb and should have been left alone.
My Review: Not a novel. Just not. It's too much like the memoir for me to buy the novel designation. Murray writes beautiful sentences, goodness knows, but his choice to call this fiction is disingenuous. The only thing that really separates this fr More...
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Aug 13, 2011
h.
rated it: 
Possibly one of the most under-rated masterpieces of the 20th century. When I added this there were only 46 Goodreads ratings and 2 reviews!! Impossible to describe, but look it up. I hate it that such an excellent read has yet to make it into the hands of exceptional readers.
Oct 31, 2008
Tatjana
rated it:
I love this book.
This is one of those little gems someone recommends to you off the cuff where it ends up changing your life. Yeah. I was on a pretty drama-riddled holiday and this book... this book made the holiday good. This book took me to a different place, with a different beat. I felt a subtle shift in me. The shift, in this case, was to look through newly opened eyes.
I can't say that I was suddenly cool or magically got some hipness. I'm still nerdly and annoying. More...
This is one of those little gems someone recommends to you off the cuff where it ends up changing your life. Yeah. I was on a pretty drama-riddled holiday and this book... this book made the holiday good. This book took me to a different place, with a different beat. I felt a subtle shift in me. The shift, in this case, was to look through newly opened eyes.
I can't say that I was suddenly cool or magically got some hipness. I'm still nerdly and annoying. More...
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Jan 02, 2012
Sarah
rated it: 
Train Whistle Guitar: Step into the lyrical thought stream of Scooter, an African-American growing up in Alabama in the 1920s. In his breathless, artless kid-voice, he talks about bootleggers, rednecks, scandals, war, baseball, love, trains, family and music, all in an impressionistic medley of stories that somehow end up forming a growing-up tale. This is the most musical narrative writing I have read in a long time.
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