"Resurrection of a Life" is William Saroyan's short story of individual human experience and the universal concept of the wish for immortality.

The story, which could almost be called an essay, addresses the author's life during the time he was a ten-year-old paperboy in California during World War I. The author serves as the narrator and begins by saying that "everything begins with inhale and exhale, and never ends..." Each moment of a human life is as natural as breathing in and breathing out until the moments add up and become the measure of a person's life.

As a paperboy in 1917, the narrator feels as if he is a vital part of life by shouting out the headlines to the people passing on the street. The paper route exposes the young boy to the unsavory side of life as his paper hawking takes him to...