Status
Available
Call number
Series
Publication
Vintage (1998), Paperback, 329 pages
Description
In a critically acclaimed memoir, a correspondent for The New York Times recounts growing up in the Alabama hill country, the son of a violent veteran and a mother who tried to insulate her children from the poverty and ignorance of life. This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton mills or the penitentiary, and instead became a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. It is the story of Bragg's father, a hard-drinking man with a murderous temper and the habit of running out on the people who needed him most. But at the center of this soaring memoir is Bragg's mother, who went eighteen years without a new dress so that her sons could have school clothes and picked other people's cotton so that her children wouldn't have to live on welfare alone. Evoking these lives--and the country that shaped and nourished them--with artistry, honesty, and compassion, Rick Bragg brings home the love and suffering that lie at the heart of every family. The result is unforgettable.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member John
A wonderful memoir of growing up poor white in the Southern USA. I had never heard of Bragg (who won the Pulitzer for journalism a couple of years ago), but had heard him interviewed on the radio, liked what he said and how he said it, and bought the book. He is a fine writer. How can one not like
My mother and father were born in the most beautiful place on earth, in the foothills of the Appalachians along the Alabama-Georgia line. It was a place where grey mists hid the tops of low, deep-green mountains, where redbone and bluetick hounds flashed through the pines as they chased possums into the sacks of old men in frayed overalls, where old women in bonnets dipped Bruton snuff and hummed "Faded Love and Winter Roses" as they shelled purple hulls, canned peaches and made biscuits too good for this world. It was a place where playing the church piano loud was near as important as playing it right, where fearless young men steered long, black Buicks loaded with yellow whiskey down roads the color of dried blood, where the first frost meant hog killin' time and the mouthwatering smell of cracklin's would drift for acres from giant bubbling pots. It was a place where the screams of panthers, like a woman's anguished cry, still haunted the most remote ridges and hollows in the dead of night, where children believed they could choke off the cries of night birds by circling one wrist with a thumb and forefinger and squeezing tight, and where the cotton blew off the wagons and hung like scraps of cloud in the branches of trees.
Bragg, in his Prologue, states:
This is not an important book. It is only the story of a strong woman, a tortured man and three sons who lived hemmed in by the thin cotton and ragged history in northeastern Alabama, in a time when blacks and whites found reason to hate each other and whole lot of people could not stand themselves.
Bragg writes very well. Clean, direct, declaratory language, but with strong descriptive powers, and an ability to reach beyond, to place human tragedy in a broader context, to see the threads, the hopes and fears that connect us all as human beings, regardless of class, race, power, money. He grew up hard, in a hard world of the poor white class, and by his own admission carried a huge chip on his shoulder for many years. He was the most "successful" of the three boys, driven by an ambition, and an ability to write and, he would be the first to admit, good luck. The memoir is an honest one in terms of Bragg's own faults: his inability to form any lasting relationship with any woman, and his touchiness based on a suspicion that it was all too good to be true and could turn to dust at any moment, just like the workers in the textile mills at home who would see a steady job and a regular pay check disappear in layoffs. It is also a story about him coming to terms with his father, who abandoned his young, uneducated wife with three small children and who was never a father to the boys. It is a very human, honest, well-written story of a group of lives that, as Bragg himself says, could be told by any number of people. It compares very well with two other popular memoirs that I've read: Angela's Ashes and The Color of Water. Interesting, but not surprising, that in all three books, it is the mother who is the central pillar of strength, who sacrifices herself and her own comfort but never her principles, and who keeps the family together and motivated.
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this opening paragraph:My mother and father were born in the most beautiful place on earth, in the foothills of the Appalachians along the Alabama-Georgia line. It was a place where grey mists hid the tops of low, deep-green mountains, where redbone and bluetick hounds flashed through the pines as they chased possums into the sacks of old men in frayed overalls, where old women in bonnets dipped Bruton snuff and hummed "Faded Love and Winter Roses" as they shelled purple hulls, canned peaches and made biscuits too good for this world. It was a place where playing the church piano loud was near as important as playing it right, where fearless young men steered long, black Buicks loaded with yellow whiskey down roads the color of dried blood, where the first frost meant hog killin' time and the mouthwatering smell of cracklin's would drift for acres from giant bubbling pots. It was a place where the screams of panthers, like a woman's anguished cry, still haunted the most remote ridges and hollows in the dead of night, where children believed they could choke off the cries of night birds by circling one wrist with a thumb and forefinger and squeezing tight, and where the cotton blew off the wagons and hung like scraps of cloud in the branches of trees.
Bragg, in his Prologue, states:
This is not an important book. It is only the story of a strong woman, a tortured man and three sons who lived hemmed in by the thin cotton and ragged history in northeastern Alabama, in a time when blacks and whites found reason to hate each other and whole lot of people could not stand themselves.
Bragg writes very well. Clean, direct, declaratory language, but with strong descriptive powers, and an ability to reach beyond, to place human tragedy in a broader context, to see the threads, the hopes and fears that connect us all as human beings, regardless of class, race, power, money. He grew up hard, in a hard world of the poor white class, and by his own admission carried a huge chip on his shoulder for many years. He was the most "successful" of the three boys, driven by an ambition, and an ability to write and, he would be the first to admit, good luck. The memoir is an honest one in terms of Bragg's own faults: his inability to form any lasting relationship with any woman, and his touchiness based on a suspicion that it was all too good to be true and could turn to dust at any moment, just like the workers in the textile mills at home who would see a steady job and a regular pay check disappear in layoffs. It is also a story about him coming to terms with his father, who abandoned his young, uneducated wife with three small children and who was never a father to the boys. It is a very human, honest, well-written story of a group of lives that, as Bragg himself says, could be told by any number of people. It compares very well with two other popular memoirs that I've read: Angela's Ashes and The Color of Water. Interesting, but not surprising, that in all three books, it is the mother who is the central pillar of strength, who sacrifices herself and her own comfort but never her principles, and who keeps the family together and motivated.
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LibraryThing member kboucher
this book was just ok. Got a little bored with his story. He should get a little therapy to deal with his relationship with his mother. Interesting to google him and read what happened with him after he won the Pulitzer Prize.
LibraryThing member Whisper1
This is one of the best well-written books I've read in a long time. His powerful story of a ragged, poverty-filled childhood with an abusive, neglectful, alcoholic father is very compellingly told.
Bragg's focus is on his strong and yet victimized mother. The only nagging thing that bothered me is
I will read his other books because the writing is so crisp and clean.
Bragg's focus is on his strong and yet victimized mother. The only nagging thing that bothered me is
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Bragg's adulation of his mother to the point that he neglects the fact that she bears some responsibility for continually going back to the loser and exposing the kids to the financial and emotional depravation that occurred.I will read his other books because the writing is so crisp and clean.
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LibraryThing member homeschoolmimzi
I very much liked the beginning of this memoir, Bragg's story of his impoverished childhood in Alabama. The writing was good, honest, witty even, despite recounting some harsh realities. Towards the middle though I grew impatient and somewhat irritated. Bragg quickly became someone I couldn't
I dunno, I prefer humility in writers. Self promotion is an instant turn off so this was not a 4-5 star book for me.
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sympathize with, as he talks casually about flitting from one girlfriend to another, like changing clothes, and focusing on his own ambition to be a successful writer. There is nothing wrong with ambition, but somehow he seems to exude this pride, arrogance and selfishness that quickly turned me off. Phrases like, "and it was the best story I ever wrote, so I am told." Gosh, let stuff speak for itself. Why state how great something was? He spent a lot of the book quoting from articles he'd written. I'd thought the main gist of the story was going to be about how hard things were growing up. But most of the book was about his journalistic endeavors. He was very careful to include a lot about winning the Pulitzer prize. Kind of telling that his last name is Bragg.I dunno, I prefer humility in writers. Self promotion is an instant turn off so this was not a 4-5 star book for me.
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LibraryThing member rmckeown
Rick Bragg’s memoir, All over but the Shoutin’, is a detailed look into the poverty of Alabama in the 50s. Bragg was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 1996. He is a national correspondent for The New York Times. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia. As the jacket accurately points out,
This memoir is heart-wrenching to say the list. The poverty of people in Alabama—as bad as it was—was still not as bad as the African-Americans in the same time and place. Rick Bragg’s story is of his long-suffering mother, Margaret, and his brothers Sam and Mark. Charles, the father, was an alcoholic, who appeared in and out of the lives of his family. He never offered any help to the wife and children, and only occasionally saw his sons. Bragg writes, “Anyone could tell it who had a momma who went eighteen years without a new dress so that her sons could have school clothes, who picked cotton in other people’s fields and ironed other people’s clothes and cleaned the mess in other people’s houses, so that her children didn’t have to live on welfare alone so that one of them could limb up her backbone and escape the poverty and hopelessness that ringed them, free and clean” (xii). Bragg claims, “This is no sob story. While you will read words laced with bitterness and killing anger and vicious envy, words of violence and sadness and, hopefully, dark humor, you will not read much whining. Not on her part, certainly, because she does not know how” (xiii). This is a portrait of one of the strongest women I have ever read about much less encountered.
Bragg also mentions the plight of African-Americans as well. He writes, “White people had it hard, and black people had it harder than that, because what are the table scraps to nothing? This was not the genteel and parochial South, where monied whites felt they owed some generations-old debt to their black neighbors because their great-great-grandfather owned their great-great-grandfather. No one I new ever had a mammy. This was two separate states, both wanting and desperate, kept separate by hard men who hid their faces under hoods and their deeds under some twisted interpretation of the Bible, and kicked the living [crap] out of anyone who thought it should be different. Even into my own youth, the orange fires of shacks and crosses lit up the evening sky. It seems a cliché now, to see it on movie screens. At the time. It burned my eyes” (4-5). As I read this passage, I recalled the all too recent image of white supremacists marching with torches, shouting racial epithets.
Rick Bragg’s bitter portrayal of poverty in the deep south is heart-wrenching and difficult to turn away. It proves the axiom that when some people are oppressed, many others are likewise. Racism is a cancer we must eradicate. All over but the Shoutin’ is a story only the most hard-hearted can ignore. We will never have justice or peace, until everyone knows justice and peace. 5 stars.
--Jim, 1/15/18
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this story is a “haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin.” Lots of times I ignore these blurbs before I read a book, but this one completely and concisely sums up the sad story of poverty in America.This memoir is heart-wrenching to say the list. The poverty of people in Alabama—as bad as it was—was still not as bad as the African-Americans in the same time and place. Rick Bragg’s story is of his long-suffering mother, Margaret, and his brothers Sam and Mark. Charles, the father, was an alcoholic, who appeared in and out of the lives of his family. He never offered any help to the wife and children, and only occasionally saw his sons. Bragg writes, “Anyone could tell it who had a momma who went eighteen years without a new dress so that her sons could have school clothes, who picked cotton in other people’s fields and ironed other people’s clothes and cleaned the mess in other people’s houses, so that her children didn’t have to live on welfare alone so that one of them could limb up her backbone and escape the poverty and hopelessness that ringed them, free and clean” (xii). Bragg claims, “This is no sob story. While you will read words laced with bitterness and killing anger and vicious envy, words of violence and sadness and, hopefully, dark humor, you will not read much whining. Not on her part, certainly, because she does not know how” (xiii). This is a portrait of one of the strongest women I have ever read about much less encountered.
Bragg also mentions the plight of African-Americans as well. He writes, “White people had it hard, and black people had it harder than that, because what are the table scraps to nothing? This was not the genteel and parochial South, where monied whites felt they owed some generations-old debt to their black neighbors because their great-great-grandfather owned their great-great-grandfather. No one I new ever had a mammy. This was two separate states, both wanting and desperate, kept separate by hard men who hid their faces under hoods and their deeds under some twisted interpretation of the Bible, and kicked the living [crap] out of anyone who thought it should be different. Even into my own youth, the orange fires of shacks and crosses lit up the evening sky. It seems a cliché now, to see it on movie screens. At the time. It burned my eyes” (4-5). As I read this passage, I recalled the all too recent image of white supremacists marching with torches, shouting racial epithets.
Rick Bragg’s bitter portrayal of poverty in the deep south is heart-wrenching and difficult to turn away. It proves the axiom that when some people are oppressed, many others are likewise. Racism is a cancer we must eradicate. All over but the Shoutin’ is a story only the most hard-hearted can ignore. We will never have justice or peace, until everyone knows justice and peace. 5 stars.
--Jim, 1/15/18
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LibraryThing member jjenn1960
An absolutely wonderful story of courage in the face of adversity. Rick Bragg's story of his rise from a childhood of poverty to becoming a Pulitzer Prize winner is heart rending and powerful. It is a story that will remain with the reader for a long time.
LibraryThing member AdonisGuilfoyle
Technically, writing this memoir of his own childhood and career lead Rick Bragg to go back and fill in the blanks of his family history in 'Ava's Man', but it works just as well reading them in the wrong order. Here, the family members he mentions in passing, like grandparents Ava and Charlie and
I love Rick Bragg's writing, but his story is just a little bit too 'me, me, me' to feel comfortable while reading it. That may sound like an odd objection to a memoir, but the pride in his family and his people that shone through in 'Ava's Man' is somehow tainted here by the way Bragg regurgitates his Pulitzer Prize winning news stories and leaves his long-suffering mother behind in Alabama. Neither his pride nor his modesty are misplaced - he admits to being selfish and driven by his own personal demons to succeed - but it does get tiresome after a point. His early childhood with Abigail (Ava) and his brothers is the best part, mixing Bill Bryson with 'The Grapes of Wrath'. After that, I would have lost interest, but for the occasional narrative gem. I don't know why, but this exchange with a laconic fishing guide named Jimmy had me in stitches: 'I've et dog,' he said, unsolicited. 'Why?' I asked. 'It was in my yard,' he said, and that was it for a while. I am not making any of this up.' Like his grandfather Charlie, Bragg can tell a good story with comic timing. He can also convey honest emotion in his journalism, and I must admit I was nearly brought to tears on a couple of occasions, too.
It's the way he tells 'em.
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various aunts, are now old friends, warmly recollected from the stories of the heyday. In 'All Over Bar The Shoutin', we learn what life threw at the author's mother Margaret Marie, born to Ava and walked around the house by Charlie to inherit his best qualities in 'Ava's Man'. She married a shiftless drunk, haunted by his experiences in Korea, who kept abandoning and reclaiming his young family before finally leaving them for good when Rick was a young boy. No great loss, but the instability and fear obviously scarred his children for life. This book is the author's way of laying the ghost of his father to rest, by telling him - and his readers - 'Look how I've turned out, look what I've done with my life'.I love Rick Bragg's writing, but his story is just a little bit too 'me, me, me' to feel comfortable while reading it. That may sound like an odd objection to a memoir, but the pride in his family and his people that shone through in 'Ava's Man' is somehow tainted here by the way Bragg regurgitates his Pulitzer Prize winning news stories and leaves his long-suffering mother behind in Alabama. Neither his pride nor his modesty are misplaced - he admits to being selfish and driven by his own personal demons to succeed - but it does get tiresome after a point. His early childhood with Abigail (Ava) and his brothers is the best part, mixing Bill Bryson with 'The Grapes of Wrath'. After that, I would have lost interest, but for the occasional narrative gem. I don't know why, but this exchange with a laconic fishing guide named Jimmy had me in stitches: 'I've et dog,' he said, unsolicited. 'Why?' I asked. 'It was in my yard,' he said, and that was it for a while. I am not making any of this up.' Like his grandfather Charlie, Bragg can tell a good story with comic timing. He can also convey honest emotion in his journalism, and I must admit I was nearly brought to tears on a couple of occasions, too.
It's the way he tells 'em.
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LibraryThing member Eye_Gee
I have never lived south of Massachusetts, and to me the Deep South seems like a foreigh country. This book by Rick Bragg brought the place to life for me in a lovely way. It wasn't just his descriptions of the people and the customs, but his wonderful southern turns of phrase that captured the
He also has a wonderful story to tell. Brought up in a poor family, and not a particularly good student, he found an outlet in writing and turned it into a career -- eventually winning a Pulitzer prize for journalism.
Definitely worth reading
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spirit so completely. One that stood out ... "as cool as the back side of a pillow"...struck me a particularly wonderful metaphor. It really made me feel the coolness that the back side of a pillow would bring on hot, humid night. He also has a wonderful story to tell. Brought up in a poor family, and not a particularly good student, he found an outlet in writing and turned it into a career -- eventually winning a Pulitzer prize for journalism.
Definitely worth reading
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LibraryThing member amachiski
This book was good but not great. The memoir by Rick Bragg tells of his life growing up in the South. He was raised in a poor family by a mother who dearly loved her children. His father was a drunk and alternated between being neglectful and abusive. His mother sacraficed everything to raise her 3
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boys as best she could. The memoir chronicles Braggs climb out of poverty and into the world of journalism where he ultimately wins the Pulitzer Prize. But all along the way, he gives credit and thanks to his mother for her love and sacrifice. I felt Bragg was trying to tell the story of his mother but he kept veering back to himself and his accomplishments while leaving his Mom behind in the dust of Alabama. Show Less
LibraryThing member piefuchs
This book is mediocre. Towards the end I was quite annoyed by the author's tendancy to romanticize the literal and educational poverty of his family.
LibraryThing member kaylaraeintheway
I was lucky enough to hear Rick Bragg speak last month at the University where I work. He's so personable, and a natural-born storyteller. I was rather delighted to discover that, as a Californian in a room full of Southerners (I live in Arkansas now), Bragg made several jokes that caused those
Bragg's sincerity, charm, and wit - on full display during his talk - is doubly prevalent in his memoir about growing up in the South. But his memoir is about so much more than that; it's about the people and a place that you can never fully leave, even when you're in another country writing newspaper articles about the horrors you witness. Bragg frames his memoir around his "momma", a strong, sacrificing woman who did not leave her Alabama town until she accompanied Bragg to his Pulitzer Prize dinner (and you best believe I got teary-eyed at that bit).
There's so much to like about this book and I can go on and on about its merits, but instead I'll just encourage everyone to give it a read. I can think of no better way to try to understand what it means to be a Southerner than to read this book. Amazing, heartbreaking, lovely.
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around me to howl with laughter, while I sat there unsure of what just happened. It really cemented how different the South really is from everywhere else in the U.S., for good or bad. Afterwards, when it was my turn to meet Bragg at the book signing, he immediately caught on that I was not from around here. I told him I was from the Bay Area of California, but my grandma lived "up the road a ways" (i.e., 20 minutes down I-40), which was part of the reason I took the job in the first place. He smiled and simply said "Then you're home. As long as you have family near, you're home." I walked back to my apartment that night clutching his book to my chest and smiling like a loon. I started reading it right away.Bragg's sincerity, charm, and wit - on full display during his talk - is doubly prevalent in his memoir about growing up in the South. But his memoir is about so much more than that; it's about the people and a place that you can never fully leave, even when you're in another country writing newspaper articles about the horrors you witness. Bragg frames his memoir around his "momma", a strong, sacrificing woman who did not leave her Alabama town until she accompanied Bragg to his Pulitzer Prize dinner (and you best believe I got teary-eyed at that bit).
There's so much to like about this book and I can go on and on about its merits, but instead I'll just encourage everyone to give it a read. I can think of no better way to try to understand what it means to be a Southerner than to read this book. Amazing, heartbreaking, lovely.
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LibraryThing member msf59
"The first memory I have is of a tall blond woman who drags a canvas cotton sack along an undulating row of rust-colored ground, through a field that seems to reach into the back forty of forever." The author was three years old at the time and the blond was his beloved Momma. This memoir is
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dedicated to her and you can feel the love and respect he has, for this tough incredible woman, as she struggles dirt-poor, to raise her three boys, while an absent father, is off on another drunk. Bragg is an acclaimed reporter for The New York Times, among other renowned newspapers and this is his story. He's a rustic poet and through his lovely prose, you will be sniffling and chuckling at regular intervals. Great stuff! Show Less
LibraryThing member PLloggerC
This memoir by Rick Bragg tells of his life growing up in the South. He was raised in a poor family by a mother who dearly loved her children. This book reads like a love song to his mother. Braggs father was a drunk and alternated between being neglectful and abusive. His mother sacraficed
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everything to raise her 3 boys as best she could. The memoir chronicles Braggs climb out of poverty and into the world of journalism where he ultimately wins the Pulitzer Prize. But all along the way, he gives credit and thanks to his mother for her love and sacrafice. Show Less
LibraryThing member edwin.gleaves
One of the great southern autobiographies, right up there with Willie Morris.
LibraryThing member vlawhead
Rick Bragg, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, writes his memoir....great read and an inspiration, but really a love story dedicated to his mother who raised her boys while facing adversity most of us will never imagine.
LibraryThing member mfassold
I loved this book--I use this book as an example of voice. Rick Bragg grew up dirt poor which is something that I share with him. We have traveled in the same shoes.
LibraryThing member msjoanna
This lovely and well-written memoir took me right back to the South. Bragg's story is one rarely heard from someone of his generation -- a man from poor roots in Possum Trot, Alabama manages to become a journalist and "make it" to the New York Times and a Pulitzer Prize through talent for writing
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without getting formal educational credentials. Reading the story, you expect Bragg to have been born in the 1930s, not the 1960s. Bragg is obviously more comfortable telling the stories of strangers than he is telling his own stories -- the second half of the book reads much more smoothly when he begins reliving some of his favorite feature stories rather than his own family's life. Nonetheless, the entire book was enjoyable. Show Less
LibraryThing member rsubber
This is a powerhouse. Another reviewer described Bragg as "emotionally generous," that says it to a "T". Bragg doesn't bother to lie about his family or himself, the story is rough and evocative, he takes another little piece of your heart with ease. He offers a scary perspective on ambition versus
Read more on my blog: Barley Literate by Rick
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love/obligation. A dreadful revelation about what it can mean to be poor.Read more on my blog: Barley Literate by Rick
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LibraryThing member dele2451
A lot of successful people stand up and thank their mother when they win a prestigious award, Rick Bragg just does it better and more thoroughly than most of them.
LibraryThing member mazda502001
This was a brilliant book and I really enjoyed it.
Back Cover Blurb:
This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin, is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton-mills or the
But at the center of this soaring memoir is Bragg's mother, who went eighteen years without a new dress so that her sons could have school clothes and picked other people's cotton so that her children wouldn't have to live on welfare alone. Evoking these lives - and the country that shaped and nourished them - with artistry, honesty, and compassion, Rick Bragg brings home the love and suffering that lie at the heart of every family. The result is unforgettable.
Back Cover Blurb:
This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin, is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton-mills or the
Show More
penitentiary, and instead became a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. It is the story of Bragg's father, a hard-drinking man with a murderous temper and the habit of running out on the people who needed him most.But at the center of this soaring memoir is Bragg's mother, who went eighteen years without a new dress so that her sons could have school clothes and picked other people's cotton so that her children wouldn't have to live on welfare alone. Evoking these lives - and the country that shaped and nourished them - with artistry, honesty, and compassion, Rick Bragg brings home the love and suffering that lie at the heart of every family. The result is unforgettable.
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LibraryThing member HankIII
I read this one awhile back, and I loved it. I tend to like confessional autobiographies that don't shy away from flaws and shortcomings, and so I tend to be partial to works that are. Bragg's book is all that and then some--growing up poor in Alabama, small town with the those who have too much
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and those who have too little, and having to deal with it with the support of his mother. It's tough writing, gritty, and in your face with no apologies and lots of personal pain. GREAT!(yeah, I know this was a lame critique, but I didn't know where to begin with this one--so overwhelming and so moving) Show Less
LibraryThing member judithrs
All Over but the Shoutin. Rick Bragg. 1997. Finally! When I checked this book out of the library the year it came out, I always had to return it so it could be sent to a requesting library! I guess I am the last person in Alabama to have read it. He is such a good writer: I read the book in 3 days.
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This is Bragg’s story of his life until he wins the Pulitzer Prize and realizes his dream of buying his mother a house of her own. Bragg presents searing description of his dirt poor childhood and his gradual rise in the newspaper world. His writing reminds me of Pat Conroy, Ben Windham, Clyde Edgerton and Roy Blount. Read it if you haven’t. Show Less
LibraryThing member fantasmogirl
Though I'm desperately disappointed that Bragg actually worked with Jessica Lynch on her "biography", I still have to give him due props for the excellence of this piece. He brings forth the emotion his entire family held back and succumbed to during his upbringing. It made me laugh and cry and
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gave me a warm fuzzy for a mother who struggled, worked, sacrificed and loved hard to make sure her children got as much as she could give them. Show Less
LibraryThing member Aetatis
One of the best personal stories written by and about Alabama and growing up in the 1960s-1970s.
LibraryThing member wareagle78
What an excellent book. Bragg writes with style, wit and compassion. As he turns his thoughts towards his childhood and his life, the clarity of his words takes you directly into his life.
I'm not able to do this one justice, but it's marvelous.
I'm not able to do this one justice, but it's marvelous.
Subjects
Awards
Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award (Nominee — 2001)
Alex Award (1998)
Alabama Author Award (Non-Fiction — 1998)
Notable Books List (1998)
Oxford American Best Southern Books of All Time (Nonfiction — 11)
Language
Original publication date
1997-08-15
Physical description
329 p.; 7.9 inches
ISBN
0679774025 / 9780679774020