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Author turns back the clock
CHICAGO (AP) - There's a bright red, fully restored '57 Chevy in the garage, and a life-size James Dean cardboard cutout greets visitors to the “sanctuary.”
The finished basement of Lou Macaluso's home in Chicago's Beverly community is his “sanctuary,” where he is surrounded by '50s memorabilia including Dean posters, his collection of model cars of the era and a jukebox.
Some might accuse Macaluso of living in the 1950s.
“I just like to visit there,” said the baby boomer, sporting a black Dean T-shirt.
The Hillcrest High School English teacher also likes to tell stories, which he's been doing easily since kindergarten.
He invented “Clown Town” when he was 6 years old as his humorous “escape from reality” when classmates would tease him about his inwardly turned lazy left eye.
He had forgotten all about it until his friend Mike, a buddy from his boyhood days in Riverdale, reminded him about it. It became the makings - and title - of Macaluso's first book, which recently was released through Dog Ear Publishing. The '57 Chevy that sits in his garage is featured on the cover.
“Clown Town” is a nostalgic memoir filled with tales of young boys growing up in the 1950s in the southern Chicago suburbs and all the humiliation and humor, fear and fun that's part of life.
“I always thought I would write a memoir. When Mike mentioned Clown Town, that brought it all together. I used that as a springboard,” he said. “It's about how little things in life, so innocent and small, turned out to be so formative and traumatic later on.”
He also uses the “Clown Town” theme in his relatively new career as a motivational speaker to teachers and businesses. His other projects include a novella, a collection of short stories and a biography of a deceased friend.
He prefers to spend a few hours writing when he gets up at 5 a.m. with his three dogs.
“To be a good writer, you have to be a good reader,” Macaluso said. He loves to read short stories in New Yorker magazine and anything by Tobias Woolf.
He relies on his wife, Dorinda, also an English teacher and “strict grammarian,” to read his drafts, and he attends writing workshops where they critique each other's work.
“I'm still learning,” the author said.
Memoir writing is not so much about being “super accurate,” he said.
“When you free yourself, the memories come back and feed on each other,” memories that are “seasoned with time's unique spices: imagination, exaggeration and color,” as he writes in the book.
Full of colorful characters and boyhood adventures, as well as nostalgia, “Clown Town” reveals how he dealt with his fear of death and his temper. But Macaluso didn't just write a memoir. He hopes his book will be helpful to someone else dealing with these issues.
“I wanted it to be a narrative social history of Chicago and secondly, a self-help book about dealing with emotions and fears. If people walk away with that, I'll be as happy as a clam,” he said.
The finished basement of Lou Macaluso's home in Chicago's Beverly community is his “sanctuary,” where he is surrounded by '50s memorabilia including Dean posters, his collection of model cars of the era and a jukebox.
Some might accuse Macaluso of living in the 1950s.
“I just like to visit there,” said the baby boomer, sporting a black Dean T-shirt.
The Hillcrest High School English teacher also likes to tell stories, which he's been doing easily since kindergarten.
He invented “Clown Town” when he was 6 years old as his humorous “escape from reality” when classmates would tease him about his inwardly turned lazy left eye.
He had forgotten all about it until his friend Mike, a buddy from his boyhood days in Riverdale, reminded him about it. It became the makings - and title - of Macaluso's first book, which recently was released through Dog Ear Publishing. The '57 Chevy that sits in his garage is featured on the cover.
“Clown Town” is a nostalgic memoir filled with tales of young boys growing up in the 1950s in the southern Chicago suburbs and all the humiliation and humor, fear and fun that's part of life.
“I always thought I would write a memoir. When Mike mentioned Clown Town, that brought it all together. I used that as a springboard,” he said. “It's about how little things in life, so innocent and small, turned out to be so formative and traumatic later on.”
He also uses the “Clown Town” theme in his relatively new career as a motivational speaker to teachers and businesses. His other projects include a novella, a collection of short stories and a biography of a deceased friend.
He prefers to spend a few hours writing when he gets up at 5 a.m. with his three dogs.
“To be a good writer, you have to be a good reader,” Macaluso said. He loves to read short stories in New Yorker magazine and anything by Tobias Woolf.
He relies on his wife, Dorinda, also an English teacher and “strict grammarian,” to read his drafts, and he attends writing workshops where they critique each other's work.
“I'm still learning,” the author said.
Memoir writing is not so much about being “super accurate,” he said.
“When you free yourself, the memories come back and feed on each other,” memories that are “seasoned with time's unique spices: imagination, exaggeration and color,” as he writes in the book.
Full of colorful characters and boyhood adventures, as well as nostalgia, “Clown Town” reveals how he dealt with his fear of death and his temper. But Macaluso didn't just write a memoir. He hopes his book will be helpful to someone else dealing with these issues.
“I wanted it to be a narrative social history of Chicago and secondly, a self-help book about dealing with emotions and fears. If people walk away with that, I'll be as happy as a clam,” he said.
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