The Nursing of Patients Suffering From Diseases of the Chest Book

I had hoped for more depth, for Jackie to be a redeemable scoundrel, for young Pete to learn some life lessons from the grizzled old souls who ran the midway, but this was not to be. Everyone in this story seems just plain awful. Perhaps that’s the point. I didn’t engage with Peter or feel like I was ever on his side. The story also had moments where I just flat out thought, “That never happened.” (Example: the scene where the degenerate gambler lunch lady comes out with a special gourmet lunch she made for Jackie, who shared with Pete: a tremendous amount of food, including curly fries. First, no one in the kitchen questioned why she was cooking up all that pricey food? Was there no inventory or budget at that school? And second, apparently there were curly fries in a school cafeteria in a small town in Michigan in the 60s. I’m skeptical.)

Considering the author was writing about a few months of his life that happened over 40 years ago, it stands to reason that more than a little was reinvented to fill the gaps of time and memory. Also considering he was a trained conman, I took the stories with a grain of salt, and I think that is largely why I didn’t enjoy the book more—I didn’t feel I could trust this guy to tell me the truth, so I never let my guard down.

The book did bring back memories of Coke bottle and Find the Duck carnival games from my childhood, and the Himalayan ride he describes – I remember it too, it seemed like a furious flashing nightmare – guaranteed to induce seizure or vomiting.

I think the author might have been better served to turn his experiences into a novel. And actually when I saw that he had written for the National Enquirer I really hoped he’d tell us about that at some point in the book, but alas it was not to be.