GROWING UP by Russell Baker (Plume:...

GROWING UP by Russell Baker (Plume: $10; 278 pp., illustrated). Russell Baker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography has lost none of its appeal in the 13 years that have elapsed since its original publication. Baker’s youth was dominated by a succession of memorable women: his paternal grandmother, the imperious matriarch of a flyspeck town in West Virginia; his widowed mother, struggling for independence during the depths of the Depression; his unapologetic, independent fiancee. This mellow recollection of maturing amid crises reveals the truth of Proust’s dictum that any writer’s life can be seen as a preparation for his vocation.