I Was Looking for a Street

By: Charles Willeford

Narrated by: Dan McGowan

I Was Looking for a Street tells the story of the author's childhood and adolescence as an orphan, as he moves from railroad yards to hobo tent cities, to soup kitchens and deserts around Los Angeles and across the United States. The ensuing tale is at once a picaresque adventure through Depression-era America and a portrait of the writer as a young man of seemingly little promise but great spirit. Written after Willeford's later literary success with Cockfighter, Miami Blues, and The Woman Chaser, this memoir is the work of a writer at the height of his powers, looking back without nostalgia or regret, and preserving in his clear and powerful prose the great American adventure of his youth. Writer Luc Sante contributes a preface to this volume; director Quentin Tarantino and musician Will Oldham among his many devoted fans.

©1963 Betsy Willeford (P)2020 Audible, Inc.

Excellent Willeford work, underwhelming narrator

The narrator isn’t bad, just not the right tone for Willeford. Bowlby has been the best so far.
Willeford fans will find lots worthy of interest in this memoir. Anecdotes and character descriptions that made their way into Willeford’s later fiction. Willeford’s contribution to the genre of hobo travel literature he loved. Accounts of the early family relationships that continued to shape Willeford throughout his life. It’s great.

Awful narration

A brief, interesting look at the author’s life as a teen on the road during the Depression. The clumsy, sing-song narration was awful.