STORIES FROM CHARLESTON STREET | Kirkus Reviews

Retired accountant and businessman Skaleski’s debut memoir collects the author’s fond memories of growing up in mid-20th-century Illinois.

The author was born in 1942 in Chicago, and his Polish American family lived in Bucktown, a neighborhood of Eastern European refugees. Like most kids, the young author delighted in running wildly around the neighborhood, and that’s how he broke his left leg one Halloween—as the title of this collection’s opening story, “Look Both Ways,” teases. Other stories showcase other accidents, as when he later broke the very same leg. These recollections reflect the settings in which Skaleski grew up, in which were notably few luxuries. The story “Art,” for example, reveals that the author often built his own toys (including an SF-inspired “squadron” of unidentified flying objects), and in “Windows and Doors,” the Skaleskis, while staying with relatives in Wisconsin, use an outhouse with a rather startling substitute for toilet paper. There are familiar tidbits that readers of all ages will find relatable, about being raised in a Catholic home, looking after a first pet (in “Taking Care of Things”), and acquiring the impressive skill of secretly unwrapping and rewrapping Christmas gifts (in “Oil is Oil”). The author’s focus is on family, with tales of his protective older sister, an emergency involving his baby sibling (in the aptly titled “Responsibilities”), and his mother repeatedly, and apparently baselessly, accusing his father of infidelity. However, later tales shed light on the author’s careers, such as his high school job at a McDonald’s owned by Ray Kroc, who famously turned the restaurant franchise into a household name.

The author delivers these stories chronologically, although most of them aren’t set on the titular Charleston Street in Chicago; his family lived in other apartments and even in another city in Illinois (specifically, Des Plaines). His prose is simple and good-natured in tone, and he endearingly writes about many of his friends and family members; he also offers his amusing interactions with God, to whom he spoke more often than prayed. Stories involving romantic interests spark memorable anecdotes, such as two that chronicle separate kissing sessions that were thwarted by unwanted interruptions. Of course, some of the stories here are more serious and profound, as when Skaleski tells of losing a girlfriend to an unexpected illness; another tale spotlights the author’s life at the time that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Other stories touch on racism and other bigotries, as when schoolmates derided his Polish heritage. Much of this collection emanates an unmistakable sense of nostalgia, as when the young author passes by a VistaVision movie theater, becomes enamored with Annette Funicello (then a member of the Mickey Mouse Club), or works a job for an astonishing 60 cents an hour. The final few stories disappointingly feel as if the author is sprinting to the end, as he entirely skips decades of his life and mentions “failed marriages” only in passing.

A set of remembrances that are often as engaging as they are heartfelt.