Exposition to The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, A Memoir by Bill Bryson

            In the story The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, A Memoir by Bill Bryson the exposition revolves mainly around the time period that it is set in. It is stressed mainly on the fact that it is set in the 1950s. Often times when you get a visual picture of the 1950s from a dressing perspective but from reading this you find there is much more to it. Bill Bryson put in historical events to help the reader get the picture. He puts in information about the Korean War, what his parents had just gotten out of the Great Depression, and the gadgets that were just coming out for that time period.

            From the events the author gives it paints the picture of what was happening not only in the main characters life but also in the life of everyone’s in the world. No, he wasn’t living in Korea during this time period, but everyone knew something about the war. It was a common conversational topic. Just like listening to the baseball games in groups around a radio and ditching school for an inning in during. It was a social expectation to be into it during this time period.

Bringing in the Great Depression, it describes the way his parents were raised. He briefly explains how his mother would wash the paper plates, save every piece of food for left overs which they would eat constantly until it was gone, and that everything they owned, they had a certain amount of pride in it. He describes his parents as being conservative from the hard times they had experience before hand and being truly thankful for everything that they had now.

As far as the gadgets are concerned, nothing makes you feel more like a child then having to look up half the things the author describes. Being born in the mid 1990s, my knowledge of a “mimeograph, rotisserie, stenograph, icebox, dime stores, RZ Stor-Mor refrigerators” is little to none. Bill Bryson does a great job with describing just how different the 1950s were to the present day.