Starts and Finishes

"The '50s," says Brendan Gill, "have begun to fade at an alarming rate, and it isn't a moment too soon for Carey Winfrey, who grew up in them, to tell us what they were like for him and his contemporaries. He writes with candor, wit, and ruefulness about the ignominy of boyhood and young manhood, in a charming book that is a celebration of life as well as an irresistible memoir of a single life." Adds David Halberstam: "An exceptional and often wondrous coming of age...in a marvelous world of racetracks and military acadamies."