an iconic writer's youth.

Joyce Carol Oates shares with fans, the people and places that have shaped her in her more-than-just-a-memoir, memoir titled The Lost Landscape: A Writer's Coming of Age. This isn't her first memoir, but it is the first time that Oates discusses the memories of her childhood. In a collection of 28 stories, Oates takes readers home to western New York (my hood), where she grew up on a farm as the oldest child. She writes of her siblings, her friends, tragedy, how Lewis Carroll introduced her to the magic of literature. Oates shares her journey, her ghosts, the good and the bad. As a reader who appreciates great writing, I enjoyed her story.