Synopses & Reviews
From one of our most celebrated film critics and historians now comes a beautifully written memoir about his first eighteen years, growing up as an only child in south London in the midforties and late fifties. Told with elegance and restraint, partly from the point of view of a child, partly from that of an adult, it is the story of a lonely, stammering boy cared for by a matriarchy of his mother, grandmother, and an upstairs tenant, Miss Davis, to which he adds an imaginary sister, Sally. At the heart of this story is David Thomson's profound sadness at being abandoned by a cold and distant father who visits only on weekends and keeps, as Thomson later discovers, another household.
Thomson gives a vivid picture of London in the aftermath of the war, whether it is his grandmother bringing him to a street corner to see Churchill or the bombed-out houses that still smelled of acrid smoke where, though forbidden, he played. Movies became his great escape, and the worlds revealed in Henry V, Red River, The Third Man, and Citizen Kane were part of his rich imaginative life, one that gained him a scholarship to public and eventually film school. And though his father could never tell his son he loved him, he spent the first part of vacations with him and he came back most weekends, taking Thomson to everything from boxing to cricket matches. But as Thomson admits, "I am still, years after his death, bewildered and pained by my father, and trying to love him or find his love for me."
Try to Tell the Story is a haunting and unsentimental look at the fragility of family relationships, a memoir of growing up in the absence of a full-time father, with movies and sports heroes as one's only touchstones.
Review
"David Thomson, the historian and critic whose New Biographical Dictionary of Film is to my way of thinking the one essential reference book about the movies, was born in London in February 1941. I was born in Pittsburgh in October 1939, which, depending on how one chooses to interpret it, gives him a leg up of almost two and a half years on the Grim Reaper or gives me more experience of life's vicissitudes. All of which probably is neither here nor there, except that the rough similarity of our ages turns out to be only the beginning of our parallel paths, stripping me of almost all objectivity as a reviewer of his memoir, Try to Tell the Story." Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World (read the entire Washington Post Book World review)
Synopsis
One of the most celebrated film critics and historians presents the story of his first 18 years, growing up an only child in south London in the 1940s and 1950s. Romantic, restrained, and tautly written, "Try to Tell the Story" is a haunting and unsentimental look at the fragility of family relationships.
About the Author
David Thomson, author of "Have You Seen...?" and The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, is a regular contributor to The Guardian, The Independent, The New York Times, Movieline, The New Republic, and Salon. He lives in San Francisco.