Holy Land a Suburban Memoir

¶ … Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir Waldie's 1995 manuscript "Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir" provides readers with a biographical account of the writer spending his childhood and adolescence in Lakewood. Lakewood was one of the largest suburban communities in California during the 1950s, when most of the actions in the book take place.

The way that the writer manages to bring forward the idea of life as constructed from both the benefits and detriments coming along with living in Lakewood is certainly impressive, as most readers are likely to feel transported into the world that Waldie creates for them. It would be wrong for someone to relate to the book as simply being what its title tries to make it seem.

The text is much more than a suburban memoir, taking into account that it provides a detailed story of life in a particularly compelling place and the relationship between the writer and the respective place.

"I live where a majority of Americans live: a tract house on a block of other tract houses in a neighborhood of even more." (Waldie 2005) It is interesting that readers do not necessarily have to be from a suburban environment in order to truly understand the book's message, as it is directed at being understood by the general public.

One almost feels nostalgic about the text, as it puts across ideas making readers think about their childhood homes and the environments they considered to be the most important in the world as they were growing up. The book is meant to trigger intense emotions as it brings up a series of questions related to the post-war era and society's tendency to recover from the critical condition that the conflict had put it in.

People had come to the suburbs as a consequence of a series of events that practically shaped their lives and their personalities as they developed there. Waldie is certainly biased in telling the story, but this does not meant that he attempts to trick the reader in confirming his assumptions. Instead of doing so, he encourages readers to share his feelings as they consider their background and the way that something as apparently tedious as a suburb can influence a person to come up with particularly impressive thoughts.

The mysterious youth and the idea of going through a series of adventures in the suburbs in what shaped individuals like Waldie. The writer is able to put across two types of thinking at the same time, as he relates to the limits associated with living in the suburbs and as he also relates to how people nonetheless have what it takes for them to integrate the social order as unique beings rather than expressing the exact same ideas as other members of their community.

"The grid limited our choices, exactly as urban planners said it would. But the limits weren't paralyzing. The design of this suburb compelled a conviviality that people got used to and made into a substitute for choices, including not choosing at all." (Waldie) Taking this into account, it would be safe to say that the writer was both impressed and appalled with conditions in the suburbs, as there was some sort of love-hate relationship dominating his thinking while there.

The writer goes further than most people in describing his hometown, as he employs a reflective attitude and attempts to provide readers with an account that is much more complex in comparison to typical stories describing a Los Angeles suburb. It is intriguing to 'watch' the storyteller present information regarding his upbringing, as one can almost feel his anxiety as he had to cope with events in the suburbs while also considering what was happening in the outside world, with politics and religion filling news stories.

Readers are influenced to look at Lakewood through the author's eyes and to consider the simplicity of life in the suburbs as a concept that actually makes it even more appealing.