Bill Bryson, One Summer: America 1927 (2013)
A historical timeline entry for May-October, 1927 might read something like this:
- Floods devastate the Mississippi valley
- Charles Lindbergh makes first solo flight across the Atlantic
- Sacco and Vanzetti executed
- Calvin Coolidge declines to run for another term as president
- The Jazz Singer filmed
- Babe Ruth hits a record sixty home runs in a season
Ho, hum. . . does this list take you back to the droning of your tenth-grade history teacher? In Bryson’s latest work of nonfiction, he tries not to numb us with facts but to illumine what it was like to be an American in the summer of 1927, midway between two world wars, enjoying unprecedented prosperity and on the brink of the Great Depression. The summer’s events are taken as a starting point for a narrative that ranges forward and backward in time, exploring everything from the development of aviation to the rise and fall of Prohibition to the tribulations of the motion-picture industry. In the process we meet a staggering array of athletes, criminals, actors, politicians, explorers, writers, anarchists, scientists, entrepreneurs, and inventors, with their idiosyncrasies played up to the fullest extent.
Bryson’s style here is somewhat more subdued than in the writings that made him popular (such as A Walk in the Woods, reviewed here), in which he writes of his own life and travels in such an engaging and humorous way. Since Bryson was unfortunately unable to time-travel back to 1927, his writing takes on a more distant quality, but still has wonderful touches of sly commentary, as in this passage about the anti-Catholic activities of the Ku Klux Klan:
Many in the state [of Indiana] believed that Catholics had poisoned President Harding and that priests at Notre Dame University in South Bend were stockpiling armaments in preparation for a Catholic uprising. In 1923 the most surreally improbably rumor of all emerged — that the pope planned to move his base of operations from the Vatican City to Indiana.
According to several accounts, when residents of the town of North Manchester heard that the pope was on a particular train, 1500 of them boarded it with a view to seizing the pontiff and breaking up his conspiracy. Finding no one recognizably papal, the mob turned its attentions to a traveling corset salesman, who was nearly dragged off to an unhappy fate until he managed to convince his tormentors that it was unlikely that he would try to stage a coup armed with nothing but a case of reinforced undergarments.
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| Charles Lindbergh |
There’s an impressive number of narrative threads to keep track of here, and in general I found the hopping about between time periods and topics to give a pleasantly lively effect. This works best at the beginning when Lindbergh’s flight (and the accompanying antics of his rivals) acts as an anchor for the story. Toward the end, though, the book starts to unravel with too many short, undeveloped episodes: the origins of television; the birth of the modern musical theatre; the unfortunate rise of eugenics (which brings us back to Lindbergh again). . . the events of a single summer truly can’t be separated out neatly, but tie into everything else that comes before and after, and that gets complicated. Where does one stop? The final chapter of the book proper ends on a somewhat feeble note with a mere listing of the key events, as if attempting to regain control of the proliferating historical themes by reducing them to manageable facts again — an understandable, if somewhat disappointing impulse.
It’s possible to get all snooty about works of popular history such as this and sneer at them as intellectually inferior.* It’s true that there are some infelicities of language in One Summer, with certain words seemingly not clearly understood, and an overuse of the term “literally.” The invariable use of the word “America” when referring to the United States, as in “America went to war with Germany,” also betrays a certain imprecision. If I were writing an academic paper or delivering a speech at a historical society I would not be using Bryson as my primary reference. But I was grateful to him for breaking through some of my historical blind spots, and giving me a summer full of characters and events as colorful, absurd, and eccentric as any in fiction. Unlike my tenth-grade history lessons, I won’t soon forget them.
*As did an incredibly vitriolic review in the Washington Post, which I won’t dignify with a link (but you’ll find it easily if you look).
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The Emerald City Book Review Archive 
I started reading this over lunches at work, and was quite interested, but then somebody (my co-worker!) checked the book out and now it's no longer on the new books shelf (which is conveniently near my desk–all the other books are upstairs) so I forgot about it. I had just gotten to Coolidge–well, there was a lot about Babe Ruth too.So, thanks for the reminder! I should track it down…
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I think it's worth finishing, although as I mentioned, at the end it just sort of fizzles out. The summer ends, but history goes on…
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I like when history books take a slightly different approach to telling these stories. I like the idea of focusing on a summer to illuminate some other aspects of history.
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It was an interesting idea. The reasons for choosing this summer were a bit opaque though — Babe Ruth's home run streak may be of interest for sports fans, but is hardly of historical significance. Lindbergh's flight was more interesting, more for the shenanigans that surrounded it than for his own sake (he turned out to be a highly unpleasant character).
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I've heard a lot of good things about Bill Byrson. I don't read a lot of nonfiction usually, but it's something I would love to get into. I may add some of his books to my TBR list.
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Do! I also liked A Walk in the Woods and Notes from a Small Island.
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I haven't read Bryson yet but a couple of his books are on my wishlist!
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I'm pretty sure you would like his style.
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I like listening to him on audio too. From a Sunburned Country is my all time favorites of his but this one was good too.
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I should read more too. Sunburned Country looks appealing!
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I've enjoyed the Bryson books Ive read, but wasn't even aware of this one. thanks for sharing!
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I'm glad I made time for it this month.
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I still can't believe I haven't read this, since it's one of my favorite time periods to teach. Like Kim said, I like when writers take a sliver of time and draw connections that we wouldn't necessarily see, so I've been curious.
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I'm curious what you would think as a teacher. For me, the highlighting of the characters was the main appeal — I knew many of them as names but had no idea how quirky and sometimes strange they were.
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I've actually never read a Bryson book! But I agree with you that there IS a place for works of popular history like this one . . . not everything has to be written as an academic treatise. It's great if a writer like Bryson can interest people who are not professional historians in a particular time period. It sounds like an interesting idea to focus on just one summer and consider the key things that Americans would have been experiencing or reading about.
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It was, and brought together many different elements which might otherwise not have come into a book that focused on a particular subject. The plethora of topics and events was both the strength and weakness of the book.
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I need to read this book..I loved Bryson's In a Sunburned Country and have had this one on my TBR list forever! You made it sound thoroughly entertaining and I love how you stood up for its appeal to "intellectually inferior" people – ha! As long as I'm enjoying reading something, I really don't care how "intellectual" it is!Thanks for visiting my blog today!
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It was entertaining, informative, and not at all pretentious. Maybe some people have a problem with that, but I don't. : )
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Great review! You've really nailed the strengths and weaknesses of the book. I think I have reviewer's envy. 😉 I listened to the audiobook and really enjoyed it.
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Why, thank you! I'm pleased that so many people have found it of interest.
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