Reviewed by Claire Hamner Matturro Rick Bragg can spin a charming, compelling story about coleslaw—that’s the range of this man’s creativity and talent, which I’ve been appreciating since reading (savoring) his hauntingly beautiful memoir about growing up hard, fast and poor in Alabama, All Over But The Shouting (Pantheon 1997). I wasn’t the only one […]
March Read of the Month: “The Books that Mattered,” by Frye Gaillard
March 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Allen Mendenhall “My first encounters with books were disappointing.” That’s a curious opening line for a memoir about reading inspirational books, but an apt one, too, because Frye Gaillard anticipates right away how he will treat reading: not as an activity undertaken in isolation or as an exercise liberating readers from the quotidian […]
Southern Lit: All About Mules?
April 5, 2011 by Leave a Comment
If you haven’t read Rick Bragg’s latest Southern Journal in April’s issue of Southern Living magazine, check out his humorous take on what makes real Southern Literature: “Scholars have long debated the defining element of great Southern literature. Is it a sense of place? Fealty to lost causes? A struggle to transcend the boundaries of […]