Here is the blurb:
From the famed publisher and poet, author of the million-copy-selling collection A Coney Island of the Mind , his literary last will and testament — part autobiography, part summing up, part Beat-inflected torrent of language and feeling, and all magical.
In this unapologetically unclassifiable work Lawrence Ferlinghetti lets loose an exhilarating rush of language to craft what might be termed a closing statement about his highly significant and productive 99 years on this planet. The “Little Boy” of the title is Ferlinghetti himself as a child, shuffled from his overburdened mother to his French aunt to foster childhood with a rich Bronxville family. Service in World War Two (including the D-Day landing), graduate work, and a scholar gypsy’s vagabond life in Paris followed. These biographical reminiscences are interweaved with Allen Ginsberg-esque high energy bursts of raw emotion, rumination, reflection, reminiscence and prognostication on what we may face as a species on Planet Earth in the future. Little Boy is a magical font of literary lore with allusions galore, a final repository of hard-earned and durable wisdom, a compositional high wire act without a net (or all that much punctuation) and just a gas and an inspiration to read.
A review of Little Boy :
The last time I started (but didn’t finish) reading something of his was last century of a book published in the 1950s-60s. So I had assumed he was long since dead.
But his 100th birthday is coming up March 24th, and they are celebrating it in San Francisco:
He has passed away at age 101:
Andy_L
February 23, 2021, 11:11pm
3
My first reaction is “He was still alive!”