These are just a few and give a taste of a Boy’s Own adventure that this remarkable memoir is. The chapters in his book are not numbered, instead they bear headings and a quick look at some of them provides a snapshot of what the reader is in for: Pig Riding, The Nazis Are Coming, Crazy Frankie, Shooting Angels, Where There’s Smoke… and Running Away. But that did not stop him making the most of the cards he’d been dealt. He was reared for a while by his grandparents whom he obviously loved, but against his own wishes, he was taken in by his father, whom he refers to as Junior, along with his step-mother Pat, and from there a dark shadow descended over his life. In modern day social-services-speak he would be classified as an abused child, or at least a neglected one. To say Sanborn’s formative years were difficult is understating the reality. The reader is introduced to “Doc” when he is but five months old and we follow his life until young adulthood. In fact, it’s a memoir of the author’s own childhood experiences in New England during the 1940s and 1950s, “Xanadu” being the name of a run down property his father acquired – the author’s home for several years. “Doc” Sanborn’s "Escape From Xanadu" sounds at first blush like a 13th century adventure story centred around the summer capital of Kublai Kahn’s Yuon empire.
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