” He even waxed on about it in his book “Dreams of Father”. “
” Dreams “ is a treasure trove of information.
My used copy of Dreams is part of the second printing , I have always wondered if in the original printing in 1995 ,
Barry mentioned discovering his birth certificate as he does in the 2004 Dreams.
And by discovering-it’s Barry’s way of saying, he was sneakily rifling through his grandmother’s belongings.
And he didn’t say he discovered his COLB, he specifically said birth certificate .
Along with a detailed interview given by BO Sr upon his graduation from the Univ of Hawaii.
In which neither a wife or new baby were mentioned.
Barry found this perplexing and blamed an editor for no doubt removing the pertinent information.
Or else his father had to be angry with his mother and was being passive aggressive by not telling the reporter about such an important biographical detail.
One of the aspects of Dreams that makes it almost unreadable is the sheer volume of head spinning minutiae about the most mundane aspects of his life.
He routinely recounts lengthy verbatim conversations and occurrences that happened decades earlier.
With vivid and detailed descriptions of what everyone was wearing , the time of day , the weather conditions ,
the location with scenery specifics and everyone’s emotions at the time.
Including events where he was not present-like his grandparent’s life in the 40s and 50s.
Barry either has a world class photographic memory
or he can time travel .
And yet when it comes to the details of his parent’s relationship and his birth-he is so extremely vague that it stands out like a beacon.
“Barry either has a world class photographic memory
or he can time travel.”
or he is a pathological liar. I thought the same thing about him remembering the most minute detail of his sad, little life.
Also I felt the book was written in this cool, beatnik style which is alright if you are a gifted writer. Prose more fit from Bill Ayers.