Mark Twain Made Me Do It and Other Plains Adventures

In recent years the premature memoir of the young or floundering writer has established itself as a fledgling genre. While many of these hasty autobiographies seem of scant interest to anyone except the most dedicated literary groupie, Jones (The Farming Game) offers a collection of essays that recalls the youthful credulity of America in the '50s as much as it does his often hilarious, Huckleberry Finn-inspired misadventures. The son of a Methodist minister, Jones progresses from a four-year-old concocting gurgling chemical experiments in the parsonage's upstairs toilet (""Pot Roast Every Sunday"") to a high-schooler recounting offbeat church legends at a typical '50s holiday get-together (""The Clan""). Over the course of these essays, Jones comes of age, which means he settles into living inside narratives he understands are larger than his own (""Polio,"" ""Growing Up Methodist""). Though Mark Twain's two shortest essays--""Heading West"" and ""Back to the Basics""--prove transitional and a little sentimental, Jones's prose remains clear and energetic throughout. He's careful, as well, not to fall victim to cheap nostalgia. Leave it to a junior-high-school writing teacher living in McCook, Nebraska, to figure out how to get around that hazard. (Mar.)