Growing up with an alcoholic father is not very easy for anybody, especially a ten year old boy in the heartland of America. This is the situation for Scott Russell Sanders. He had to live with an alcoholic father for his entire life. "In his good-night kiss we smelled the cloying sweetness of Clorets, the mints he chewed to camouflage his dragons breath." (Sanders, P. 424) as you can see, this was a very traumatic experience …showed first 75 words of 823 total…

…showed last 75 words of 823 total…for the turning of a key in my brain." (Sanders, p.433) For a person such as Scott Russell Sanders, writing a story about his childhood must have been pretty hard. It is, though, very important that he wrote about this. Also writing provides a release for him, it relieves his tension and relaxes his mind for his children. Sanders also did a good job using many different types of styles to get his point across.