” Keenly observed and written with his insightful and deadpan sense of humor, he explores enduring Southern truths about home.”

 

NO MAJOR SPOILERS

Rick Bragg has settled nicely into the annals of time as one of the most loved contemporary Southern US authors with this collection of short articles (not long enough to be short stories) gathered from different publications throughout the years.

When he talks about his family, his Mama’s pasture, Pretty Girl (their mangey dog), and driving down potholed roads of backwoods Alabama, you can practically smell the grass, feel the heat of a hot southern sun, and see that dog, doing it’s best to live up to her name.

My favorite section of stories was “Table”… where he talks about the food of his people… the red beans and rice of Louisiana, the cornbread of Alabama, the grouper in a Florida bayou. My mouth watered when he talked about his family’s Thanksgiving dinner, and one particularly well named chapter “For a Vegetable I’ll have White Gravy.”

Mr. Bragg doesn’t shy away from the stereotypes of Southern USA and it’s often mean spirited past. His family picked cotton, scraped by, and got pickled by the heat. But it’s the place he loves, and he makes us love it too.

 

Reviewed by:

Kerri Beany Foulks

Added 15th January 2016

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Kerri Beany Foulks