From the famed
publisher and poet, author of the million-copy-selling collection A
Coney Island of the Mind, his literary last will and testament --
part autobiography, part summing up, part Beat-inflected torrent of
language and feeling, and all magical.
In this
unapologetically unclassifiable work Lawrence Ferlinghetti lets loose
an exhilarating rush of language to craft what might be termed a
closing statement about his highly significant and productive 99
years on this planet. The "Little Boy" of the title is
Ferlinghetti himself as a child, shuffled from his overburdened
mother to his French aunt to foster childhood with a rich Bronxville
family. Service in World War Two (including the D-Day landing),
graduate work, and a scholar gypsy's vagabond life in Paris followed.
These biographical reminiscences are interweaved with Allen
Ginsberg-esque high energy bursts of raw emotion, rumination,
reflection, reminiscence and prognostication on what we may face as a
species on Planet Earth in the future. Little Boy is a magical
font of literary lore with allusions galore, a final repository of
hard-earned and durable wisdom, a compositional high wire act without
a net (or all that much punctuation) and just a gas and an
inspiration to read.
