Literary Nonfiction. In this warm and humorous memoir, the boy you meet is irrepressible, devilish, curious, rambunctious, imaginative, sports-minded, friendly, naive, and absolutely joyful—definitely the kind of boy who would get in trouble from his teacher for "unnecessary talking." Mike O'Connor's stories remind a reader of what it was like to grow up in small-town 1950's America. "With UNNECESSARY TALKING, poet Mike O'Connor leads us through the streets and neighborhoods of Montesano, Washington—circa early 1950s. These stories and sketches make up a memoir of a young boy's clean, clear understanding of a world where mystery is common sense and adult rules are slippery as a wet bar of soap. O'Connor's writings, though rooted deeply in the rain-soaked soils of the Pacific Northwest, reach out to touch, in a tender and wise way, the very heart of an America lost but still loved"—Finn Wilcox.