Publishers Weekly reviews Whiskey Breakfast

Whiskey Breakfast: My Swedish Family, My American Life, a memoir by Richard C. Lindberg, is reviewed in Publishers Weekly.

In this memoir, Lindberg (The Gambler King of Clark Street) traces the steps of his Swedish-American parents in Chicago as he tries to resolve the many conflicts he still faces from his difficult youth. Excerpts from letters and postcards offer first-hand insights into the lives of immigrants and those left behind in the Old World from the early to mid-20th Century. ... With sometimes interesting, sometimes bewildering characters at play--the woman-chasing, socialist, alcoholic, thrice-divorced, older father who abandoned a pregnant woman to flee required military service in Sweden for America; the mother who chooses her parents and childhood home over an independent life; the flapper aunt--the book reads like a novel in its first half, and like a journal in its second. Despite the weighty contemplations, Lindberg serves up captivating historical tidbits and offers a window into the immigrant experience.

Published in: Publishers Weekly


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