Rick Bragg's latest book sent me madly scrambling for every internet geneology site imaginable trying to find out from whence I sprung. I didn't stop until I traced my familial beginnings back to Robert Penn Warren and Jane Austen. (I'm not kidding.) His stories just do that to you...they make you yearn for your history, even the ugly parts that you have to conquer your fears to sift through. It forces you to trace with your finger the names, the meanings, your own stories. I've never encountered memoirs that inspired me so to put my own pen to paper as this man's. By the time he was finished, men's moonshine burned my throat through its pages, Southern women's biscuits and gravy comforted my soul, and the rapscallion kids reminded me of a place inside of my own head in which going out to conquer the world didn't seem like such an outlandish idea. And when it was over, I asked Rick to inscribe my book to my dad, who is in reality a "step-dad" but has never treated my like a step-child. "To Chuck," it says. "The one who stuck around, and still sticks." He told me as he wrote it that it was an honor.
Rick Bragg, at my local independent FoxTale Book Shoppe.
And this lovely, intelligent, well-spoken, and extremely sweet lady is Rick's wife Diane, aka "The Woman" in his latest book... 
Friday, May 30, 2008
The Prince Of Frogtown by Rick Bragg
Imparted by Southern Girl at 7:31 AM
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3 Things not left unsaid:
he gives a great reading. saw him a couple of years ago and ran out and bought or borrowed all his books to read. hope you enjoyed yourself.
I hate I missed it! I read All Over But The Shoutin' and then sent it to a friend of mine in a care package to Iraq. So, needless to say, when I saw The Jessica Lynch Story at Goodwill I had to get it. I enjoyed both books for different reasons.
What did you think about seeing him in person? Had I been in town, I'd have been there with you!
Oh. Goodness. That post gave me cold chills. I borrowed All Over But the Shoutin from a friend of mine, started reading it, then put it down because I could sense Sadness Looming. Boy, he can write.
I'll have to get this one.
Thanks for this post. It got me thinking.
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