That you will be completely charmed by Elliot Paul's recollections of his boyhood is a matter beyond speculation. The turn-of-the-century scenes are not only dear to his heart but clear to his mind - albeit sometimes suspiciously so. But who will quarrel with so elegant a storyteller as Mr. Paul? Out of the sow's ear of common occurrence he makes a silken purse to hold the coins of our enchantment. Rare is the reader who will not delight in these fortified memories.
Those who recall The Last Time I saw Paris know that Elliot Paul is incapable of being banal or tiresome. Thus there is nothing of the diary-like march of events in this record of his early years in the Boston suburb where he was born. Instead you will find a series of neatly dovetailed stories, anecdotes, character sketches, comedies, tragedies and singularly embellished observations all set out for your allurement like gems in a jeweler's window.
Some of Mr. Paul's tales of the people who lived out their lives in Linden will make you laugh, some may even tempt a tear. There are a few - such as the story of Alice Townsend, the schoolteacher who found that her name had been written in snow with a stylus of strange origin - that may inspire the sincerest suggestion of a blush.
Linden on the Saugus Branch, a volume complete in itself, is another segment in what will ultimately be Elliot Paul's life story: Items on the Grand Account. Both The Last Time I Saw Paris and The Life and Death of a Spanish Town are other books in this group.
