Crying at Movies: A Memoir

When Hitchcock's The Birds began showing in the summer of 1963 at the Dolton Theater, the starlings of Riverside, Illinois launched their attacks. They were "black, freckled, oily-looking things" with "tiny black buttons for eyes." They carried off Skippy Whalen's baseball cap, pooped on Father Rowley's finger, and attacked a feisty little dog named Tuffy who fought them off. "I blamed Hitchcock" says the author, a Catholic grammar school student at the time. In this comical, witty memoir, ...