Growing Up

Baker describes talk as a favorite Depression era pastime because talk is free. He remembers waking up at night to the sounds of the adults brewing coffee and exchanging reminiscences and anecdotes, talking about movies and morals. When he finished his homework, he was allowed to sit at the able with them and listen to the conversation flow. Baker comes to learn that they were “all fanciful yarn spinners […] not above weaving a comic fiction out of a single thread of fact” (99). Telling stories is how the adults entertain themselves and each other, lightening their burdens with laughter. The adults tell stories about themselves, as well. Hal reinvents himself as a business man whose next great deal is just around the corner, though he never seems to round that corner. Charlie is a brilliant intellectual who rails against New Deal Democrats for giving handouts, though Charlie himself depends financially on Allen.

Baker initially takes the stories he hears at face value, believing they transmit truth. Harold’s outrageous stories compel Baker to question their function. Harold claims to remember being born. He swears he was shot between the eyes during WWI. He insists he was almost buried alive. His stories stretch Baker’s credulity to the breaking point, helped along by Harold’s wife repeatedly telling him to “quit telling those lies” and Lucy calling him “the biggest liar God ever sent down the pike” (127).