Situation in Flushing

¶ … Flushing Edmond Love's novel, The Situation in Flushing, is an engaging story that effectively brings us into a small-town world that seems to come straight out of American mythology. As the capable love tells us about his upbringing in Flushing, we are transported by his crisp prose into his recollections of the era. While his recollections are not supported by outside sources, this is not an important factor in the enjoyment of his book. Historical accuracy is not necessarily as important as capturing Love's impressions and feelings about his childhood.

As such, The Situation in Flushing is an effective and engaging look at growing up in small town America. In The Situation in Flushing, first published in 1965, Love tells the story of his childhood in the small town of Flushing, Michigan. This nonfiction work focuses on the humor and charm of small town America as the horse and buggy are replaced by the automobile.

He gives a deeply personal and detailed account of his life, and in doing so describes a world that seems to be terribly out of step with our modern society. Edmond Love is clearly a capable writer. He has written nine books, including Subways are Sleeping, which provided the basis for a 1961 Broadway Musical. He has contributed to The New Yorker, Harper's, and The Saturday Evening Post.

Perhaps most importantly, for a book of nonfiction, Love claims to recount his own personal experiences in growing up in Flushing, Michigan in The Situation in Flushing. Certainly, the immediacy of his experience is important in establishing his credibility in writing the book. Love's descriptions of Flushing seem to be accurate and reliable, at least from the perspective of someone that has never visited the area. He provides little in terms of outside sources, either primary or secondary, to establish the credibility of the tale.

As such, it is difficult to objectively analyze the accuracy of his writing. However, perhaps establishing the accuracy of Love's descriptions is not absolutely necessary in reading this book. Love's book does not claim to be an accurate, academic description of life in Flushing. Instead, it is a personal narrative, colored by his perceptions and biases. It is this personal, an often unreliable, input that gives The Situation in Flushing its specific charm.

Overall, one of Love's greatest triumphs in the book is the way that he manages to bring the reader into an interesting and engaging description of his childhood in Flushing. He captures that specific period in time with a gentle and humorous hand, as his narrative about the loss of rural America mirrors his own growth and slow loss of innocence. Love is especially capable at using humor in his work.

At almost the beginning of the book he recounts the tale of bees that crash a local funeral, all because a local beekeeper is too kindly to move his bees excessively. Love writes, "For the next several years, the first item on the agenda at every weekly council meeting was Roy Simpson and his bees" (Love, 3). To today's reader, Love's descriptions of rural America seem to come straight out of the mythology of rural America itself. He describes a world that seems to have all.