Steve Rushin’s “Sting Ray Afternoons” is a nostalgic look at growing up in suburban middle America during the 1970’s.
Written from the viewpoint of a bookish catholic schoolboy, the book traces life in a sports loving family of seven. Rushin’s father is a salesman who perpetually wears suits, and his mother wages a war of glasses leaving rings on coffee tables while dissuading any vulgarity with the term “Hillbilly”.
The book is well-written and funny giving a nostalgic view into the modest and descent life of church-going and sports-loving families of the 1970’s.
Key Takeaways:
- Rushin, remembers his youth in the 70s, in his memoir entitled,’Sting-Ray Afternoons.
- Reviewer, Jim Zarolli, called the memoir a ‘sunny coming-of-age story,’ noting the Rushin family seemed happily shielded from the bad stuff happening outside the family cocoon.
- Devoid of violent, even unduly argumentative behavior, or substance abuse problems, the Rushin household did seem to echo a Normal Rockwell era.
“In the early 1950s, sportswriter Steve Rushin’s hometown of Bloomington, Minn., had a population of just 9,902.”
Read more: http://www.npr.org/2017/07/08/534768812/funny-elegiac-sting-ray-afternoons-strikes-a-nostalgic-chord
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