It All Felt Impossible

42 Years in 42 Essays

180 pages

English language

Published May 7, 2025 by Rose Metal Press, Incorporated.

ISBN:
9781941628355

View on OpenLibrary

No rating (1 review)

2 editions

Philly in the 1990s and 2000s

No rating

This is a great and quick-reading memoir by my colleague at Rutgers-Camden. Each chapter is a short essay for each year of McAllister's life. My favorite essay was 2006 when Tom is in Iowa City and dealing with a tornado for the first time. He's lived most of his life in Philadelphia, and the book offers an interesting picture of Philly during his early years 90s and 00s.

I'm always amazed at how vulnerable people are willing to be in memoirs, and this is no exception.

My favorite passage is about the slam dunk contest from the 2005 essay:

"I want to clarify something: dunks matter more than you think they do. You may want to tell me it's all a big dumb spectacle, and the scoring doesn't make sense, and it's just a show to sell Sprite and sneakers, and yes, sure, that's what it is. But strip all …

Subjects

  • Personal memoirs
  • Literature, collections