allthepage

Walking Through Walls is Philip Smith’s memoir of his father, Lewis Smith, who, at first introduction, is a chic, in-demand interior designer in Miami in the 1950’s. His clients included celebrities, socialites and, if memory serves, a couple of foreign dictators, one of whom held him hostage until the work was completed.  This alone would have been sufficient fodder for an entertaining memoir, but there was much more to Lew Smith than met the eye. What began as an interest in macrobiotics, health food, and ancient religions, bloomed–to the great surprise of his family–into an ability to communicate with the universe. Lew Smith was a psychic healer. He began by laying on hands, and eventually communicated with spirits, performed exorcisms, and did all kinds of other stuff that frankly I have a reeeeally hard time believing. In fact, had the book not been so engaging, so heartfelt and funny, I would probably not have finished it. But it was, and so I basically just decided to suspend my disbelief and proceed as if Philip Smith’s father was no more incredible than an alcoholic or schizophrenic or any other dysfunctional dad of memoir material. With that qualification, I have to say, I enjoyed it a lot. It was described on the jacket as “Running with Scissors meets Bewitched.” The TV witch reference seems a little over the top, even for a skeptic like me, but the Augusten Burroughs comparison is pretty apt.

Here’s an excerpt:

“‘My, aren’t you a cutie!’ She leaned closer to me and took a drag off her cigarette. As she exhaled, her ample sunburnt breasts, spilling out of her black fishnet one-piece, bobbed up and down against my face. Dressed in my blue blazer, bow tie, khaki shorts, and freshly shined Buster Browns, I was, at six years old, an irresistible magnet for drunken middle-aged women looking for love. Mom always insisted that if I were going to sit at the bar and drink that I at least be well dressed.”

Philip Smith is an artist and writer who lives in New York and Miami.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS