Anne-Marie Levine

Oral History

In the tradition of Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye, Anne-Marie Levine takes us back to the 1940s to bring us an American boy’s coming-of-age story. Thrown into the world of the hard-working, hard-drinking, hard-loving men of the Texas oil fields, and in thrall to their free-wheeling individualism, the boy embraces their macho life style with eager, reckless abandon, telling his story with the singular, unjaded innocence of the very young. A verse monologue in the voice of a male narrator, Oral History has often been performed as a solo theater piece. Published here for the first time, this distinctive volume is sure to delight new audiences.

Anne-Marie Levine’s Oral History utterly captivates. It moves with a delicate ease that is hard, true and enviable.

—Tim Blake Nelson