Publisher's Synopsis
Perhaps the first hint that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came when, at the age of six, he discovered a woollen jersey with a golden thunderbolt across its moth-holed chest. Apparently an old college football sweater, but to young Bryson it was the Sacred Jersey of Zap: proof that he had been placed with this innocuous family in the middle of America to fly, become invisible, and wear his underpants over his jeans like Superman. Bryson was an ordinary kid in 1950s America. It was a happy time, when almost everything was good for you, including DDT, cigarettes and nuclear fallout. This is a book about growing up in a specific time and place. But in Bryson's hands, it becomes everyone's story.
