All over but the Shoutin'
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize–winner and bestselling author, "a grand memoir.... Bragg tells about the South with such power and bone-naked love ... he will make you cry" (Atlanta Journal-Constitution).
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 also 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.
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 also 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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Community Reviews
Fabulous! I guess being an Alabamian makes my review a little biased, but the stories and depictions of country folks almost sound as if he's describing my own family.
As a side note, I recommended this book for the newly re-vamped Summer Reading list from having read just the first several pages (yes, I thought the writing was THAT good!), but mostly because - Heck, Rick Bragg's an Alabama boy!
Little did I know that this Pulitzer Prize winning author's memoir would cause such a ruckus in my little old high school library. A parent called and complained to the principal, an asst. principal, and finally, to me - my first official book challenge as a Media Specialist - and it wasn't pretty. Fortunately, it was resolved without removing the book from the list or my library.
While I understand someone objecting to a book or parts of a book, I cannot fully entertain the idea of someone adamantly criticizing a book without actually reading it, which apparently happens quite a bit in school libraries.
Well, this one will be front and center on my Banned Books Week display next month.
As a side note, I recommended this book for the newly re-vamped Summer Reading list from having read just the first several pages (yes, I thought the writing was THAT good!), but mostly because - Heck, Rick Bragg's an Alabama boy!
Little did I know that this Pulitzer Prize winning author's memoir would cause such a ruckus in my little old high school library. A parent called and complained to the principal, an asst. principal, and finally, to me - my first official book challenge as a Media Specialist - and it wasn't pretty. Fortunately, it was resolved without removing the book from the list or my library.
While I understand someone objecting to a book or parts of a book, I cannot fully entertain the idea of someone adamantly criticizing a book without actually reading it, which apparently happens quite a bit in school libraries.
Well, this one will be front and center on my Banned Books Week display next month.
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