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Summary: Definition of the South
Review: Magnolias and pecan trees in the back yard. Scraggly hunting dogs pooled together beneath the front porch. Hard men, harder women, and children with eyes that show no hope of a brighter future. This is what Rick Bragg writes of; a south that some people have never known existed, where poverty is in the back pocket of everyone but a tomato or cucumber sandwich can still be had if the crop was even half good. Rick Bragg is eloquent yet humble in his portrayal of growing up, giving credit where credit is due - to his momma, who like so many other southern women of the day sacrificed all for the love of her children. I laughed, I cried, and I remembered. No one has explained it better before or since. Two thumbs up to Rick Bragg. And a dozen red roses to his Momma.
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Summary: Nail on the Head
Review: I grew up just down the dirt road from Rick about 10 years earlier, but in that part of Alabama things don't change that much. Rick's memories of Calhoun County and his honest writing style hit the nail on the head exposing the trials and tribulations of growning up in a rural Appalachian environment. His style is so lucid, I had to check to see if I might be his hidden step-brother or something like that. This book, and this writer, will find a place among the truly great southern voices.
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Summary: Good Read
Review: This is a great read! I enjoyed it..at times I felt I was right there in that little house in Alabama with him and his mother. For anyone raised dirt poor or in the South this is a must read.
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Summary: Rick Bragg--stories that zing, prose that sings
Review: Rick Bragg is the kind of writer that raises journalism to high art and makes other journalists despair. With honesty and a homeboy's love of home he makes you see, feel, taste, be, love, cry and laugh...lots of laughter. He made me want to be Southern, to be his mama's child, to know him, to hear more. Bragg knows his material, respects his subjects and has the storyteller's gift. Bragg's images echo in memory to rise up and make you gasp when least expected. On preemies in a neonatal intensive care unit he writes: "Some last for awhile and then slip away like beads off a broken string." He describes a man "as cool as the other side of your pillow" and you know all about him. So fine.
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Summary: My whole family read this book!
Review: My family was raised in East Texas and a lot of what Rick Bragg shares in this book reminds us of those experiences, but that is not why I loved it and have read it several times. My aunt, who is 78, recommended it to my mother and my mother recommended it to me. I fell in love with Rick Bragg's heart and recommended it to my daughter, since her generation has no understanding of the loyalty and faithfulness described in this book. Our family's "generational sharing" reminded us to treasure the people who love us. I fell in love with Rick Bragg's mother and always hoped to be a mother just like her.
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Summary: Aptly named
Review: The author was aptly named, not the book. All Bragg, all the time.
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Summary: Exorcise those demons! Make your ma proud....
Review: At the suggestion of a good friend, I picked up Bragg's book. A Pulitzer prize-winning reporter for the New York Times, Bragg grew up as "poor white trash" in Piedmont, Alabama in the sixties and seventies, and has written a book (dedicated to his mother) for all Americans (not just the Southerners!). I am still swept away at how powerful, humorous, sweet, painful and sensitive this book is. As awkward as it is to be in the class of "Yankee yuppies" who should neither appreciate nor understand Bragg's life (according to him), I was so moved and so pained and so happy about what his life had evolved to be - how much of his "luck" (as he believed it was) was really just his clear recognition of the absolute sacrifices his mother (in particular) had made for her three boys, and his understanding that the various men he'd worked for saw his talent and encouraged him.As unsettling as the violence, alcoholism and poverty in this book was (like Mary Karr's, "The Liar's Club"), what is so important about it is that while the middle and upper classes in this country believe that they are living the most fulfilled lives - a book like this will drive home the fact that there are some things in a life that transcend the 'items' whose possession we value, the 'schools' we strive to go to, the circles we run in. This book demonstrates so clearly that it is the relationships and support of other human beings in our lives that "really" matter..... whether they are poor God-fearing neighbors who help out those even less fortunate than themselves, a mother who makes home-made biscuits in cracklin' fat 'cause she knows you love them, a grandmother who plays the banjo (self-taught) and teaches you to sing the fun songs, or the older brother who will always hand you the fishing pole with a big one on the hook just so you can reel it in. Yes, it is so much clearer that all of these complex relationships teach a human being how to be a decent person - and how to survive. The stories in this book are all painful, some are bittersweet, some are funny, but they are all an education, and allow us to walk in another man's shoes for a while.
Rating: 
Summary: A book in Two Halves
Review: The first half of this book is excellent; Bragg leads us quickly and vividly into the world of his mother, a beautiful resourceful woman who happened to marry the wrong man. Bragg's pain and honesty fill every paragraph as he desribes how his mother was abandoned and abused again and again by her alcoholic husband. In the background, the social structure of a segregated and dirt poor Alabama society is sketched in a number of vivid episodes. I had to keep reminding myself that he was describing his family life in the 1960s and early 1970s; not a century before. So far, so great. Unfortunately, Bragg fills the second half of the book with his own life-story, and at times you can't believe he's the same author. The pride and hardship of being poor but self-reliant turns into self-congratulation and self-flattery. The snobbish attitudes his family had to endure becomes reverse-snobbery, and frankly he becomes a collosal bore. Perhaps the early part of his life has so scarred him that he genuinely feels he's owed something, perhaps he simply got tired of writing the book, but the most likely explanation is simple ego - Bragg has forgotten that only fellow journalists read by-lines. A good book then, but readers who restrict themselves to first 100 pages or so won't be missing much.
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Summary: Not quite the hero he'd have us believe
Review: Talmudic teaching tells us that we don't see things as they are, we see things as we are. Mr. Bragg see himself as quite the decent guy. He's made up plenty of excuses for running away from responsibility but, like his father, I think he just doesn't want the hassle of it. His marriage - a mistake. No children. No permanent relationships. Family - only in small doses. No mortgage. His few possessions include the treasured garage sale books given to him by his dying father (the man he claims means nothing to him). The beginning of the book is beautifully written. Soon, however, it reads like a hurried copy for the morning edition. Supposedly a loving tribute to his mother, it's mostly one to himself. Mr. Bragg brings a lot of emotional baggage to the writing of his story which definitely seems to have distorted his vision of events. He thinks of himself as the one who rose from the ashes and made his mother proud. His brother, Sam, seems the true hero of the story - always there when his family needs him. He says the catalyst for writing this book was the death of his grandmother. It seems more likely to be the notion that, "Hey, if Frank McCourt can get a Pulitzer Prize for his life, why can't I"?
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Summary: So few great literary journalists left, Rick Bragg is one.
Review: The days of the great journalists writing great literature based on real life and a rudimentary instinct to reveal a life that may inspire others have sadly waned. Rick Bragg is one of the few who still uphold such integrity in his articles for the New York Times. I read this book when it was first released and I've come back to it several times over the last few years. His writing, his story is of a classic American journalistic and literary nature that becomes rarer all the time. I have recommended this book to both literature scholars and casual readers alike and have always received an enthusiastic "thank you" upon completion of the book. If you love this book as I did, I also recommend Pete Hamill's "A Drinking Life: A Memoir" another great story of a poor American kid whose talented writing helps to pull himself up and become one of Americas great reporters. Vice versa, if you've read that you'll love this.
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