Christmas Past
By Bill Duncliffe
iUniverse 2002
ISBN: 0595224229
Novelized Memoir
Christmas

Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, MyShelf.Com
Buy a Copy

Family Memories and Christmas

Christmas Pasts are Holiday's
Best Gifts Ever

Bill Duncliffe is from a newspaper family and it shows. His powers of recollection and tale-telling are evident in his book, Christmas Past. The journalistic skills he most likely contracted by osmosis serve him well in calling up memories of Christmas-American-Style replete with the required dreams of baseball dancing around in a young boy's head-in this case, a personally autographed fielder's glove from Carl Yastrzemski himself.

This memoir cum novel breaks a few rules. A teacher in novel writing might suggest that it isn't long enough or fleshed out enough to be a full-fledged novel; it's not quite a memoir either. It reminds me more of a long short story. That should not bother most readers because it is a good story. The kind of story that warms hearts, even in bitter Boston where it is set. It reminds me a little of some sections from John Grisham's A Painted House. It's full of humor, humanity and good old-fashioned Christmas memories. At $9.95 it's a sweet-souled, slim little volume that says "Merry Christmas" much better than a card.

http://www.christmaspastweb.com/