WILDCELT BOOK PICKS - ‘Wild blueberries’
BY BAY AREA AUTHOR, PETER DAMM
“First prize, Memoir MAgazine: Humor / Coming of Age Category”
“2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist”
“Great Lakes Great Reads Award Finalist”
REVIEWS
“A Gem of a Book”
“Peter Damm’s stories about growing up in Michigan made me laugh aloud, cry, and occasionally wince when they hit too close to home. He infuses his stories with a deeply felt sense of place. The lakes and forests of his Michigan youth take on the presence of characters in his narrative. This is a lovely collection of stories, well conceived and beautifully told. The clean economy of the language and its cadences possess a quality that is almost poetic. Wild Buleberries is a gem of a book.”
- William Rodarmor, Award-winning journalist and French Literary translator of fiction, non-fiction, young adult works
www.godine.com/book-author/william-rodarmor
“A Joy to Read”
“Peter Damm’s memoir, Wild Buleberries, is a joy to read. What emerges is a lyrical, rich and complex account of growing up in rural Michigan. The story of his coming of age is skeptical in tone, at times amusing, and yet we see how a sheltering tradition can comfort and unify. I read Wild Blueberries in two sittings, held by its directness and simplicity. It was a pleasure to be in the hands of an intelligent and generous author.”
- Leo Litwak, Guggenheim Fellow, winner of the Jewish National Book Award and the 1990 O. Henry Awards, 1st Prize; author of The Medic
www.workman.com/authors/leo-litwak
“What Counts Here is the Truth”
“Now that Wild Blueberries is between bound covers, I will wear this book out to my heart’s content: keep it on my bedside table and dog-ear my favorite pages. In my work over the years, I have read at least 1,500 manuscripts. Only a handful have affected me in this way, in terms of the quality of the writing. I like the unaffected narrator who shares his search for an assembled, integrated version of the past, and conveys so clearly the idea that what counts here is the truth.”
- Susan Harper, Writer, longtime book editor and university Creative Writing instructor
“Gentleness and Humor”
“In Wild Blueberries Peter Damm tenderly sketches out the delights and tribulations of a seemingly quiet Midwestern childhood. Wrestling with the riddles of his Catholic inheritance, we hear the questions of a smart sensitive young man trying to puzzle out the mysteries of sin, sex, and spirit, and make sense of the adult world. There is a gentleness and humor to Damm’s stories that invites the reader to reflect on his or her own journey to maturity.“
- J. Ruth Gendler, Artist, teacher and author of The Book of Qualities, Changing Light, notes on the Need for Beauty
The reSponse to ‘Wild Blueberries’
“Reading this book made me feel like I was sitting outside on a porch during a beautiful summer evening, holding a drink, and listening to a master storyteller spin his yarns. You get caught up in the beauty, or the humor, or the poignancy, or the honesty of the stories. I was captivated by this book. Peter Damm writes in a way that is simple and yet lyrical, as if you’re reading poetry in story form. And his last chapter, written in the present tense, will stay with me for a very long time. I highly recommend this book.”
“Peter Damm has beautifully crafted vignettes of his growing up in rural Michigan in the 1950’s and 60’s. They are alternately funny and poignant, but always feel genuine and heartfelt. His writing style is so engaging that I couldn’t resist being pulled into each and every story. He does a masterful job of creating a sense of time and place through his words, much like a painter might do with their canvas. These stories are timeless and universal. I truly had difficulty putting this book down, and wished it would never end. This is one of the finest memoirs I have ever read.”
“What a beautiful and deeply moving book. From the first page to the last, I was captured by how these seemingly ordinary events of childhood and adulthood became transformed into extraordinary, magical tales of wonder and awe and sometimes bittersweet loss. Written lovingly with a tender respect for the innocence of childhood and one's own coming of age, as well as a wry and wicked sense of humor, the book opened my heart and made me both laugh and well-up with tears. Each story is concise but potent, with not a wasted word. What a pure pleasure to read Wild Blueberries. Such a fine piece of writing.”
“Like a brisk and invigorating breeze or an oven-warmed dessert, Wild Blueberries reminded me of the best of a child's sensibility: daring mischief and a fabulous imagination, openness to sensual experience, commitment to understanding adult mysteries, sensitivity to siblings' and parents' suffering. This book is a carefully crafted, emotionally intelligent piece of literature. Although I am a picky and impatient reader, I literally treasured every page of Peter Damm's memoir. How he accomplished such a work without succumbing to sentimentality or indulgence is beyond me. I shall keep it close by for rereading, and will give it to close friends.”
“Wild Blueberries is a fine memoir of a wonderful childhood, a beautiful evocation of the Northern Michigan countryside and an almost perfect recollection of the simpler life of fifty years ago. I enjoyed the stories very much. I wasn't expecting to find myself moved so strongly as I read the last chapter. A beautifully written piece; I was in tears.”
“Peter Damm’s Wild Blueberries is a lovely memoir, well crafted and revealing. It is laugh out loud funny, poignant and bittersweet. The author’s stories of 1950s rural Michigan readily capture the joy and anguish of growing up and the people and places that help form us. His descriptive ability allows the reader to share fully in each story. I would definitely recommend this book.”
“Readers who are children of the greatest generation will especially appreciate this vivid recollection of family, school, religion, American rural culture and the wanderlust to experience the world’s most inspiring sights…with the courage to face the demons. Peter Damm takes us on a journey into his past with sweet irreverence and appreciation for all the difficult parts that make up a life well lived and reconnected in the most vital ways. Bravo on this travelogue of wonder, pain, devotion and forgiveness.”
“I was captured from the first sentence of the first story from this collection of stories and a little caught off guard by the emotional power of these 'rememberings'. The stories are carefully crafted, the writing polished, lean, unguarded and without pretense. Peter Damm is able to capture and convey the wonder and confusion of growing up, the discovery and joy and pain of childhood with gentleness and humor. He invites you into his past, his memories , his life and makes you welcome and you find yourself happy to be there. It is a lovely book. I highly recommend it.”
“Wild Blueberries by Peter Damm is a wicked brew of tall tales and private moments, of epic adventures and common occasions; it is life's rich pageant. Many memoirs are elegies of dystopia or nostalgia of a romanticized past. Damm does neither. Instead he skillfully links a collection of short stories to a larger meaning. His stories are your stories. They supersede gender, religion, place, and time. With each story you will laugh, cry, and even cringe not for the author, but with him—as you too have shared experiences. Perhaps the greatest gift of Wild Blueberries is the inspiration it provokes for you the reader to tell your own story. A great gift indeed.”
“I thoroughly enjoyed reading this collection of stories from Peter Damm's childhood. It is written in a light, direct style portraying the lessons he gleaned from various episodes as a boy in a moderately large Catholic family in Michigan. It frequently put a smile on my face. Often times those were smiles of recognition - seeing a similar experience from my own boyhood. I suspect many men will find the same in this book, and many women equal enjoyment, if for different reasons. At no point did I feel this book required any effort to read - it was simply a joy.”
About the author - Peter Damm
Peter Damm’s life has traveled varied tracks. He was raised in small town rural Michigan and graduated with honors from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He later studied with National Book Award winner Wright Morris, and with Guggenheim Fellow and National Jewish Book Award winner Leo Litwak in the Master’s Creative Writing Program at San Francisco State University.
He has lived abroad and traveled widely in Europe, India, Bali, Mexico, and parts of the Middle East, Indonesia, Central and South America, and New Zealand. He worked on the grounds crew of a golf course, as a banquet waiter, on road construction crews, the staffs of magazines, and as a freelance writer and editor.
He has taught European travel classes, taught English language and American culture to Japanese university students, co-founded an import gourmet food business, was co-owner of a residential real estate brokerage, earned a doctorate degree in Clinical Psychology at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, and worked as a psychotherapist, grief counselor, and with families of the chronically mentally ill. His book of poems, “At the Water’s Edge”, chronicles a 5-month journey in Bali, Indonesia and New Zealand.
Peter lives and works in Berkeley, California.
Peter discussing the book at Gathering Volumes in Perrysburg, Ohio.
Book event at Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino, California.