Bill Bryson has some wonderful books, including the lesser known and heralded "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid", a semi-factual recitation of his boyhood in Des Moines. It is very worth reading but it can be slow-going because of all the times when reading gets interrupted by laughter, reminiscence, and more laughter.
"No, I mean it couldn't survive on its own, without a body." "Well, this one did." "Not possible. How are you going to keep a head oxygenated without a heart?" "How should I know? What am I—Dr. Kildare? I just know it's true." "It can't be, Bryson. You've misheard—or you're making it up." "Well, I'm not." "Must be." "Well, Arthur, I swear to God it's true." This would cause an immediate stunned silence. "You'll go to hell for saying that if it's not true, you know," Jimmy would remark, but quite unnecessarily, for you knew this already. All kids knew this automatically, from birth. Swearing to God was the ultimate act. If you swore to God and it turned out you were wrong, even by accident, even just a little, you still had to go to hell. That was just the rule and God didn't bend that rule for anybody. So the moment you said it, in any context, you began to feel uneasy in case some part of it turned out to be slightly incorrect. "Well, that's what my brother said," you would say, trying to modify your eternal liability. "You can't change it now," Bergen—who, not incidentally, would grow up to be a personal injury lawyer—would point out. "You've already said it."
Bryson, Bill. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid . Crown. Kindle Edition.
