Book Review "Micro Memoirs" by Dan Campbell

Reviewed by Jo Collett

I’m a very serious person. I speak softly. I laugh silently. So when a piece of fiction actually makes me laugh out loud, it’s got to be something out of the ordinary. Oliver Sacks produced some mighty guffaws in my household when I read parts of “The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat.” I laugh audibly at the exploits of Alexander McCall Smith’s eccentric academics in the Professor Von Igelfield series; and I could add the LOL comment on most of the witty memoirs that Dan Campbell posts on a regular basis on Smith Magazine’s Six Word Memoir site.

In his book “Micro memoirs” Dan has produced a collection of his six-word memoirs, neatly organised into various categories, including asylums/medical, gardening/trees/plants and marriage/family, to name a few. The six word memoir or story has become a genre in its own right, and a visit to Smith magazine’s website will illustrate to the uninitiated the clever and insightful ways that writers can describe their life in six words.

Dan Campbell’s humour is very clever and witty and never cruel. We are introduced to a cast of regular characters – his longsuffering Cherokee wife, his mother-in-law, pet parrot and garden scarecrow. Many of the one-liners are self-deprecating “Won first prize as American Idle!” There’s a contented gentleness and fun that shines through: “Wife pours me coffee during argument.”

Those of us who appreciate Dan’s writing on the Smith website know that every now and again amid the hilarious offerings, Dan slips in a memoir that simply knocks one’s socks off with its eloquence, or profundity or poetry or depth. Some of these are also included in this compilation, amongst them “Dancing is poetry of the feet.” It’s hard to select just one example. (You should buy the book).

Dan is a talented writer and poet and more of his creative work can be viewed on his blog : http://dancampbell2011.wordpress.com/.

“Micro memoirs” is a thoroughly delightful book. It should be read in the same way as one sips a glass of fine wine, slowly, savouring each portion, enjoying the effect of each memoir before moving along to the next. (I actually enjoyed both the book and a glass of fine wine together).  Congratulations Dan, on producing this collection, which will hopefully be the first of many.

“Micro Memoirs” by Dan Campbell, Publish America, Baltimore 2011.

for more six-word-memoirs, visit Smith magazine: www.smithmag.net