Title: Jack’s Journey: With Poems and Stories
Author: Jack H Garven
Publisher: XlibrisUK
ISBN: 978-1-5245-9395-7
Pages: 158
Genre: Memoir
Reviewed by: J.W. Bankston
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Pacific Book Review
Writing a memoir is a tricky business. On the one hand, memoirists begin their journey halfway to the finish line. Other nonfiction authors, along with novelists, spend a fair amount of time digging up material. Anyone contemplating an autobiography already has the material ready and waiting. Instead, they quickly become a prospector panning for gold in a silty stream. When someone is so connected to the material, it can be difficult to determine what is valuable and what should be discarded. This dilemma occasionally vexes author Jack H Garven. Still, his memoir “Jack’s Journey: With Poems and Stories,” manages to be both diverting and unusual.
Memoirs fall broadly into two categories. The first offers an unusual, even transgressive take on the familiar. Thus family life is rendered as a turbulent sea of ugly dysfunction or the anxieties of college become overwhelming to the point of psychosis. The second category depicts the familiar lived in an unfamiliar setting. This is part of why “Jack’s Journey” succeeds. The story opens in rustic Ayrshire, Scotland where life seems lifted whole from the conclusion of the 19th century. Growing up in the years during and immediately after World War II, young Jack’s earliest memories are of having “no access to public water, electricity or telephone.” Indeed outhouses, small houses and shared tubs for bathing are also present when he starts his own family two decades later.
There were times in “Jack’s Journey” when I wanted to see more of the author’s heart. Life in Ayrshire is meticulously described, from farm work to the casual death of family members. It is at its most poignant, however, when Garven describes the injuries suffered by a beloved collie (who survives thanks in part to young Jack’s care.)
The book truly gets going when Jack reaches his majority. But for a few quirks of fate he could well have followed his family tradition into farming. Instead, he meets a “city girl” from industrial Kilmarnock. In short order they are married and have several children despite few visible means of support. The writer’s interest in mechanical engineering leads him to an education at the Leicester College of Technology. After graduation, he earns an assignment to work on the construction of a gas treatment plant in Iran during the reign of the Shah. I found the author’s descriptions of his and his family’s experiences in the Middle East to be both compassionate and open. He developed an interest in the language and customs. He also details the challenges he faced with local labor. Later postings across the world, including time in Alaska and Europe, are well described.
The author’s accounts are interspersed with poetry he wrote during his journey. I found this to be a nice break from the narrative. The book occasionally reads as a litany, a long string of “and this happened, and then this happened.” The writer would have been better served by focusing on a few experiences rather than rendering an entire well- lived life in under 150 pages. Despite this criticism, I do believe that both fans of memoirs and history in general will find much to enjoy as they follow Jack on his journey.
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