by Frank Conroy
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Classic Eloquence, 2008-10-23
If you - like me - never even heard of Frank Conroy before reading his memoir Stop-Time, you'll wonder why his name was not better known. The amazing writing in his coming-of-age story literally stopped me repeatedly, just to re-read his vivid imagery. This imagery makes even his seemingly ordinary scenes ignite our imaginations. Even an something that could be put as simply as "I watched his yo-yo trick" for Conroy becomes "the trick started out like a Cannonball, and then unexpectedly folded up, opened again, and as I watched breathlessly the entire complex web spun around in the air, propelled by Ramos' two hands making slow circles like a swimmer."
First published in 1967, the memoir Stop-Time reminds me in some ways of Catcher in the Rye as it reflects the problems and challenges of adolescences much like Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye, Conroy spent most of his adolescent years experimenting with darkness and sexuality in his desire "to maintain the speed and streak through the dark world." He uses breath-taking descriptions and details to allow the reader to experience these same passages with him. But 'darkness' seems more like a place of discovery to Conroy and less of a place of fear.
Conroy's ability to retell his experiences makes his daily life seem exceptional. In the early stages of his memoir, the emphasis seems to be on dealing with overcoming personal obstacles in separation from his family, the death of his father, and his struggle with feeling lonely and friendless. In many memoirs with these similar themes, the tone is more one of self-pity and regret. However, Conroy does a very impressive job of discussing his growth using vivid, descriptive language, rather than focusing on the hardship or loss. The line, "I am intensely hungry," could leave a reader feeling bad that he has no food, but Conroy doesn't want that. So instead, his line reads, "I am intensely hungry, and yet the hunger is held down, deep in my body, a smothered force that never reaches my mouth," leaving the reader thinking about the beautiful, fluid language rather than his starvation.
I was surprised how fresh and contemporary his perceptions often seemed. But occasionally I felt like the stories he told were too similar and monotonous: he degraded the importance of these individual events. To his credit, however, he selected the most important events for the book, so that that memoir was under 300 pages, so I didn't feel like it was being drawn out. Stop-Time's classic themes and descriptive language make the memoir just as relevant today as it was back in 1967. Conroy's fascinating insights through out the book in addition to his amazing ability to tell a captivating story make this memoir a must-read.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
A masterful essayist, 2006-09-23
At first, I was challenged by Conroy's use of section breaks; I was looking for congruency and thru-line. But when I went back and re-read chapters, wonderful and magical things started happening on a subconscious level. It's like having disjointed dreams that are thematically different, and when you wake up, you can't remember them, but have a particular feeling, perhaps an insight based on some common denominator. Conroy demonstrates this kind of disjointed insight throughout the book, making Stop Time a favorite read and Conroy, in my opinion, a masterful essayist.
17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
 An early confessional, 2006-07-18
When someone writes an autobiographical memoir, if it is honest, he bares his soul. Frank Conroy's soul is unlovely to say the least. He writes without remorse - indeed, boastingly - of his sedulous part in a terrible hazing incident that involved the group beating of a schoolmate to the point of unconsciousness. And then he drags us through his pathetic, sloppy early liasons with girls, as if his experiences are something transcendant and unique just because they are his. One reviewer wrote hysterically that he hates women. Not true, of course. He is simply a supreme egotist, supreme, here, meaning far beyond the norm, beyond the natural self-concerns of most people. In one lamentable episode he completely violates the trust of a loyal and heartbreakingly earnest young woman, then shows not even the slightest trace of remorse. In Frank Conroy's self-indulgent world, Frank Conroy is number one and the devil with everyone else. This is an attitude he never outgrew. It is almost, in fact, as if he is proud of his amoral stance, as though it lends a patina of masculinity, something which he seems insecure about anyway. He was known for reducing his students to tears in his renowned Iowa Writer's Workshop.
Other reviewers gush on about his writing skills. But when a writer's heart and soul are flawed, he cannot speak truth. Our writers and poets should be our moral and spiritual guides.
Upon acceptance of the Nobel Prize for literature, William Faulkner said: [Our writers must relearn] "the old universal truths, lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands."
Therre is no compassion and no pity for anyone in Frank Conroy's world but himself.
4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
A great story of a great period of growing up., 2005-09-21
I picked this up around '69 when I was 14-15 and what a great book to read at that time of my life.
I still have my original copy which is falling apart. I'd love to know how many times I've read it.
Its simply a great book.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Blows Me Away, 2005-04-08
What blows me away about "Stop Time" is the ability of the author to capture moments of childhood magic in the midst of a story that makes its existence showing the hollow emptiness of young adulthood. It also is impressively devoid of any overabundance of self-pitty, yet aptly captures a feeling of isolation and loneliness. There are inherent similarities to other notable titles that capture the growing pains of coming of age: "Catcher in the Rye", "Lord of the Flies", "My Fractured Life", and "A Complicated Kindness." There is a strange salvation in the lyrical bleakness.
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