A large, loving, and colorful family...
A unique Southern town...
A slower-paced, warmer-hearted America...
And the kid who nearly destroyed them all.
Welcome to the sometimes perilous world of A Boy Called
Combustion, a memoir by Bill Keeton about the pleasures,
poignancy, and pranks of a boyhood in the 1940s South.
“A Boy Called Combustion is a downright funny, while poignant, tale of
family survival and patience told by a masterful storyteller—a unique coming
of age for a young man in Mississippi that will reach readers well beyond the Deep South. Dennis the Menace ain’t got nothing on Billy Keeton.” —DARDEN NORTH, winner of the Independent Publisher Book Award in Southern Fiction and author of Wiggle Room
“Bill Keeton’s memoir is chock full of wit and homespun wisdom, a modern-day Mark Twain recalling his youth
in 1940s Mississippi. Through Keeton’s vibrant prose and charming stories we see how the values of a large and
loving Southern family shaped a rascal channeling Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn into an insightful doctor who has
served his community for over 40 years. A Boy Called Combustion will leave you yearning for a time when families lived next door and the Saturday double-feature was the only babysitter you ever needed.” —LARRY KAHN, author of The Jinx and King of Paine
A Boy Called Combustion:
GROWING UP IN 1940s MISSISSIPPI
a memoir by Bill Keeton, M.D.
