The Last Street Before Cleveland: An Accidental Pilgrimage

Mackall returns to his childhood blue-collar stomping grounds when a friend dies, for reasons he doesn't fully explain in this focused but gloomy memoir. Mackall, an English and journalism professor at Ohio's Ashland University, recounts the working-class culture of the 1970s Midwest and tells of how his Italian immigrant grandfather, fleeing the mob, made his way to suburban Cleveland. Mackall's elegy for the workers' world employs delightful language (after all, he's a "card-carrying nostalgist" with a knack for one-liners). However, he struggles in writing about his present despair, about what he lacks and what he hopes to find by returning to Cleveland. As Mackall begins to doubt the efficacy of his search, spiraling into isolation and a renewed drug addiction, his prose dries up, as does the narrative's concentration on his illuminating memories. "Aching to drag the past" into his lungs, he begins to contemplate a "self-administered overdose"—that is, until a sudden rekindling of faith in God hits. The epiphany, coming after the repetitious middle section, is a relief—but the restoration of working-class stability via faith is not as convincing, or nearly as beautiful, as the earlier nostalgic recreation of a lost world. (Apr.)