KIRKUS DISCOVERIES

Isom, George Hemingway

What Is That Boy Going
To Do Next?: A Memoir

iUniverse (128 pp.)

$13.95 paperback

January 18, 2005

ISBN: 0-595-33804-6

At age 13, Isom, an African-American boy growing up in St. Louis, decided he could not abide school any longer. Manipulating his loving but distant mother, his separated alcoholic father and his father’s live-in significant other, Isom became a truant. He worked odd jobs, returned to school when caught by the authorities, then, at age 14, just a few months after the end of World War II, he joined the U.S. Navy. Placed in an all African-American unit for boot camp in Bainbridge, MD, Isom labored to fit in despite his unworldliness. He tells of being posted to Boston by the Navy; receiving an assignment on the troop transport ship U.S.S. General A.E. Anderson; sailing to San Francisco, Hawaii, China, the Philippines, and Japan; and looking for love during shore leaves. Choosing to go absent without permission, he and a shipmate end up court-martialed and imprisoned by military authorities. The consequences are grim, as Isom serves his time, then joins the crew of the U.S.S. Shelton, a destroyer. He leaves the military a veteran at just 16 years of age. Upon returning to St. Louis, he renews his family ties but sees no reason to remain for the rest of his life. Seemingly restless without end, he hits the road again, finding employment, giving it up, moving on.