Download A Long Way From Home: Growing Up in the American Heartland AudioBook Free
Reflections on America and the American experience as he has lived and observed it by the bestselling writer of The Greatest Generation, whose iconic career in journalism has spanned more than fifty years
From his parents’ life in the Thirties, on to his boyhood across the Missouri River and on the prairies of South Dakota in the Forties, into his early journalism career in the Fifties and the tumultuous Sixties, up for this, this personal story is a reflection on America in our time. Tom Brokaw writes about growing becoming more popular of age in the heartland, and of the family, individuals, the culture and the values that shaped him then but still do today.
His father, Red Brokaw, a genius with machines, followed the instincts of Tom’s mother Jean, and took the chance of moving his small family from an Army base to Pickstown, South Dakota, where Red got employment as much equipment operator in the Army Corps of Engineers’ project building the Ft. Randall dam across the Missouri River. Tom Brokaw describes how this move became the pivotal decision in their lives, as the Brokaw family, along with others after World War II, commenced to reside out the American Dream: community, relative prosperity, middle class pleasures and good educations for his or her children.
“Across the river and in the surrounding hills, I had fashioned a Tom Sawyer boyhood,” Brokaw writes; and as he describes his own pilgrimage as it unfolded—from childhood to love, marriage, the first days in broadcast journalism, and beyond—he also reflects on what brought him therefore many Americans of his generation to lead lives a long way from home, yet forever damaged because of it.
Praise for A GOOD WAY from Home
“[A] love letter to the . . . people and places that enriched a ‘Tom Sawyer boyhood.’ Brokaw . . . has a knack for delivering quirky observations on small-town life. . . . Bottom line: Tom’s terrific.”—People
“Breezy and straightforward . . . much like the assertive TV newsman himself.”—Los Angeles Times
“Brokaw writes with disarming honesty.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Brokaw evokes a feeling of community, a pride of citizenship, and a confidence in American ideals that will impress his readers.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch
