Until 1994, you could stroll into the One Book Bookstore in Bisbee, Arizona, strike up a conversation with the owner, and for $20, buy a copy of me ‘n’ Henry, the only book for sale. Over the course of several decades, Walter Swan, the owner of the store and author of the book, compiled stories he had told his children about his early years in Arizona. With his wife’s help, he typed up the book and after having it rejected by a series of misguided publishers, took matters into his own hand and not only published the book himself, but distributed it through his own unconventional means. This is not to say that Swan was a one hit wonder, however. He self-published several other books which he sold at his second shop, “The Other Bookstore.”

In keeping with how the book was created, it is comprised of a series of brief stories, most of them concerning some misadventure that Walter and his brother Henry had gotten into, then gotten out of, often with the help of his parents, who stand behind the boys as pillars of homespun wisdom. Life in the Arizona desert during the Great Depression was, shall we say “Spartan,” and the Swan family lived on the edge of poverty, which when combined with the rugged natural setting, gives the stories a hardscrabble honesty. Many of the stories are little morality tales which frequently end in aphorisms which usually reinforce the ideals of hard work and honesty, though sometimes the rewards are slow in coming. Midway through the book, Walter’s mother went on a trip to California where she apparently realized just how difficult life in Arizona was, and she chose not to come home, leaving her husband to single-handedly raise the Swan children. As Walter aged (the book ends when he is apparently in his twenties), the stories increasingly dealt with sometimes ingenious ways of making money, not get-rich-quick schemes, mind you, but instead ways of staying afloat.

Years ago I vowed to never utter the phrase “in simpler times” when referring to the past because honestly, when has life ever been simple? The bookmark which was given away with the book reads: “Always Be Kind, Have a Good Attitude, Never Give Up,” and while the messages of Walter Swan’s stories are simple, they are not simplistic because they are so hard won. Buy this book (which you still can from Walter’s family), read it, and marvel as bit by bit your postmodern urban cynicism gets worn down until it becomes a shadow of its former self.