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A Childhood : The Biography Of A Place By Harry Crews

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A Childhood: The Biography of a Place by Harry Crews tells the tale of his own childhood growing up. I purposely referred to his biography as a tale because even he could not be sure that everything he has written has happened the way he has written it, due to the fact that he starts out writing about his life ten years prior to his mother giving birth to him and that many recollections do not come from his own memory, but instead a collection of stories he has been told throughout his life. He, however, does in fact alert us quite early on in his novel that everything he has written in this book is what he believes and knows to be true, and that that is enough for him as he searches to find himself. That is why he had chosen to write a…show more content…
Crews comes from a small family of four. His mother, Myrtrice, his father, Ray, and his brother, Ray Jr. who they called Hoyet. However, his father passed away 2 months shy of Harry’s second birthday, so much of what he knows about his father now was not through his own memories. Myrtrice married Ray’s older brother, Pascal, after his divorce with his first wife. Pascal was first married to Dinah, but divorced eight months after Ray’s funeral. Pascal was the only man Harry remembered to be his father growing up, however he had another father figure in his life, Uncle Alton. Uncle Alton was Myrtrice’s brother and Harry was able to discover more about the life his father lived through him. Myrtrice came from a big family of 11 kids, her being the youngest. There was Uncle Alton, Uncle Dorsey, Uncle Leon, Uncle Frank, Uncle Harley, Aunt Gertie, Aunt Ethel, Aunt Olive, Aunt Lottie, and Aunt Bessie. However two of her brothers died young, Dorsey at the age of four from diphtheria and Leon at the age of two from pneumonia. Myrtrice’s parents were Lilly Hazelton and Grandpa Hazelton. Ray’s parents were Dan Crews and Lilly Crews. Ray was not the only child as he had a couple siblings to whom Harry referred to as Aunt Ora and Uncle Randal Jordan. These are all people who are blood related
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