Customer Reviews

Last Resort: A Memoir

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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This is a lovely, yet painful memoir of growing up in Ontario cottage country. Not only do we read of Linwood's coming of age while working at his family's seasonal campground, we also get a very honest view of what it is to live with a sibling who is mentally ill and a mother that is just not quite all there.

A beautiful book.

Linwood Barclay, one of the funniest writers in Canada, has written a memoir of his youth that will have every reader saying, "Yeah, I always wondered who owned those holiday fishing camp things on Lake Wishamagog." The Barclays did.
But in this memoir, Barclay has done something much more ambitious than make the reader laugh with recognition on each page. He has what the humorist Joey Slinger calls "meatloaf memories", recalling the things that weren't so funny like a father's death and a mother's insane expectation that her son will remain in a parallel version of her world.
I used to think funny was the hardest writing to carry off, but funny and painful is actually worse. The Camp Wishamagogs I drive by on the highway now radiate powerful emotions at me as I pass.
If you're not into anguish, there's a lot of outhouse maintenance information in here for Red Green types.
A beautifully handled memoir.

Barclay has finally revealed his long buried genius in this masterpiece. I've been reading the Toronto Star for years and never actually found anything he said very funny, but this book defied all my expectations with its brilliant gems of sparkling Linwoodisms. Now if I had actually read the book maybe you should listen to me. Really I'm just writing this so he stops complaining in print that nobody's reviewed him.