REVIEW Youngstown native displays wry humor

He recalls his schooldays at 'St. Torquemada of the Bleeding Knuckles.'
By THERESA M. HEGEL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
"A Perfectly Logical Explanation," by Michael Chevy Castranova (Kalamazoo Gazette, $11.95)
There's a perfectly logical explanation why Michael Chevy Castranova's book is so enjoyable.
The Youngstown-bred author, who currently lives in Michigan, displays a delightful sense of humor in this collection of essays that range in subject from nostalgic recollections of his childhood and bizarre anecdotes about his working life to cynical observations about homeownership and fond sketches of his in-laws in rural Louisiana.
The book's 18 essays are short, usually no longer than three to four pages, but their relative brevity is not necessarily a weakness. Although I sometimes wished a particular vignette were longer (because I was enjoying his wry take on life), each essay is complete and stands alone.
Perhaps the best -- and most relevant for local readers -- are the essays about growing up in Youngstown. He recollects attending a Catholic school he affectionately refers to as "St. Torquemada of the Bleeding Knuckles."
He talks about going to the Rollercade in his skintight jeans with his best friend to pick up girls. His best friend bought a book to increase his word power "not so much to improve his vocabulary as to impress girls." He memorized about a dozen words but not their meanings and used them in pickup lines such as: "Shall we accentuate your verisimilitude?" To Castranova's surprise, this method was often successful.
Later years
He remembers being kicked out of Hubert Humphrey's hotel room in 1968 when the vice president was staying at the Voyager Hotel. This was during a stint volunteering for the ill-fated campaign of local congressional candidate Virgil Musser.
In his essays on homeownership -- which first appeared in a shorter form in Business Direct Weekly, the publication he currently edits -- Castranova describes his war against the squirrels in his attic and explains the hardships of a Michigan winter, exemplified by his attempt to dislodge formidable chunks of ice from his gutter.
Castranova's voice is distinctive, and his essays have a nice flow. Occasionally, however, he stretches further than his reach using overlong, complex sentences, peppered with what are meant to be humorous asides. In these instances, he succeeds only in confusing the reader. Luckily, such attempts are few and far between.
On the whole, "A Perfectly Logical Explanation" is a funny, and sometimes touching, collection.
hegel@vindy.com