It All Changed in an Instant: More Sox-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure

It All Changed in an Instant: More Sox-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure
Smith Magazine (ed)
Harper, Jan 5 2010, $12.00
ISBN: 9780061719431

This is a fun, often irreverent, with many poignant entries in this entertaining succinct memoir collection. The selected contributors use six words to describe their “thoughts”. With commentary like Edward Doerr’s “Age twenty-tree, scored pallbearer’s hat trick” or “Wife away, pizza today, diet tomorrow” by David Logan, the audience will empathize or laugh with some as for many of us they hit home. Others are sad like Noema Abbott’s profound “Tiny son dying in my arms”. Best read leisurely over several weeks, It All Changed in an Instant is entertaining yet deep as summed up by Lisa Anne Auburch’s “Everything I touch turns to mold” and Brooke Marie Gorman’s “Story of my life? bad timing” as compared with the ultimate optimist Phil Skversky when he says: “Alzheimer’s meeting new people every day”. Readers will appreciate the short and snappy deep collection that includes classic concise Yogi-isms while making up their own - even the shopping list, I critique.

Harriet Klausner