Billy Ray's Farm: Essays

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Summary: On Writing and Ranching
Review: "What is it about Oxford [Mississippi] that produces writers?" It's a question Larry Brown, Barry Hannah and John Grisham get asked a lot. Brown says, "They always want to ask about Faulkner and what it all means, being a writer in Oxford, and where all the stories come from....

"I don't know what the answer is for anybody else, and I don't know what caused Faulkner to write," he explains, but "Most times, for any writer, I think it springs from some sort of yearning in the breast to let things out, to say something about the human condition, maybe just to simply to tell a story."

Of this, he knows plenty, for the essays in this memoir - I say "this," as opposed to "his," because I'm sure there will be many more - are stories of his life, so far; as a writer, indulgent father, and reluctant farmer.

Getting back to the question, he supposes it basically boils down to this: "Where do you get your ideas?" His response is "I believe that writers have to write what they know about. I don't think there's much choice in that." Elaborating, he says, "All [Faulkner] was doing was what every other writer does, and that is drawing upon the well of memory and experience and imagination that every writer pulls his or her material from. The things you know, the things you have seen or heard of, the things you can imagine. A writer rolls all that stuff together kind of like a taco and comes up with fiction. And I think whatever you write about, you have to know it. Concretely. Absolutely. Realistically."

Brown has an easy, honest way with language that is as smooth as Mississippi molasses. Describing the region around Tula, where he spent his teenage years, he writes, "The tall cypresses with their knees standing in water were hollow coon castles, the bark worn smooth on one side only from the steady traffic of coons scrambling up in the morning and down at night, regular as dairymen."

Reminiscing about his hunting expeditions with neighbors, he writes, "in the reserves of good memories we all hold, those times are special and seem magical to me, those nights in the woods and those days in the fields, those lessons in the wild."

Hunting is a tradition that weaves its way through Brown's family's generations, one he now shares with his sons: "They bring in ducks and squirrels and deer and doves, and I cook for them as my mother did for me, and they tell me their hunting stories, and I listen to catch their words."

In addition to letting us glimpse his personal life, Brown takes us down the long enduring road he's taken in becoming a writer. Deliberately seeking mentors in his early days as a writer, he found one when a friend lent him a copy of A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews. He would go on to read everything by the author he could get his hands on, and in the end, he's "grateful that a writer like him walks this earth."

Brown had written five unpublished novels by 1985, "and almost a hundred short stories that had, for the most part, gone begging also." Pulling 24-hour shifts at the Oxford fire department, working odd jobs on his off-days to make ends meet, and writing in his "spare" time, Brown burned one of his novels in his backyard and worked on his rejection-slip collection.

His "apprenticeship period" would span seven years - a relative bargain, considering Crews' lasted 10 - until his first book of short stories, Facing the Music, was accepted for publication.

Brown writes with such a subtle passion. Speaking of his son, Billy Ray, whose farm is the subject of the essay chosen for the book's title, he tells, "The barn leaks. It's an old barn, pretty ragged, but he's tried to fix it up. He's mowed yards since he was twelve years old, and worked as a butcher, and hauled hay, and laid sod, and worked on a hog farm. He's saved his money, and all he's ever wanted is to be a cattleman. And it's always hurt me deep that he has had such bad luck."

Perhaps Billy Ray should take a page from his father's history and realize that with a little luck and a lot of dedication, dreams come true.

Rating:
Summary: only for Larry's biggest fans
Review: Brown's latest offering provides a little insight into the author's home life. Unfortunately, the style is generic and the pace is slow. A few of the essays are somewhat interesting - Shack and Billy Ray's Farm, to name a couple - but taken as a whole, the book is nothing more than a marginal collection of Brown's personal essays. Only for his most hardy fans.

Rating:
Summary: Best from Larry Brown in a while
Review: I know these essays are compiled from a few scattered sources and were written here & there for the last couple of years, but the arrangement they get in this book reads like pure Larry Brown. Not since his takes on his firefighting career have I been more pleased with one of his offerings. "Fay" was, for me, lacking in stately elegance, taking itself just a little too seriously, while "Father and Son" was achingly forced in its cardboard intensity. The thing missing in those two works was a sense of humor, and it's back in "Billy Ray's Farm" in spades. A few laughs definitely give a laid-back funkiness to the proceedings, as his observations are concrete and believable (as usual) but at the same time entertaining and lively.

I have read all of Larry Brown's books, and he works best with a smile on his face. These essays find him grinning from ear to ear, and it's about time he regained that sense of playfulness and naughtiness he seemed to have lost with bot "Fay" and "Father and Son", which were heavy-handed and too simplistic in their approach. I'm glad he seems to have come back to Earth with these essays & I can't wait for more of the same.

Rating:
Summary: Best from Larry Brown in a while
Review: Larry Brown gets better with each book published. This book is quintessential Larry Brown. Simple, sparse, and completely accessible. Some people may be surprised at the lighter tones in this book of essays. It just goes to show the honesty in everything Brown writes. I have a little Larry Brown story that I think his fans would appreciate. I had the pleasure of hearing Brown read from Billy Ray's Farm at a bookshop in New York City. By mistake someone in the press printed the time of the reading incorrectly by almost two hours. Two people walked in and were devastated that they missed his reading. One of the employees told them that he was still in the back if they wanted to go talk to them. They were both a little awestruck. They're huge fans of his. After getting up the nerve they went up to them and told them how much his writing meant to them and how sorry they were to miss the reading. So what do you think he did? He took these two people into a corner of the store and read two chapters to them. Only them. It was a great thing to see and it's that quality that comes through in all of his stories. Truth and fiction. He is by far my favorite writer working today. I'm a big fan of Jim Harrison and Harry Crews as well, being from the south. If you haven't read "Fay" yet, pick it up as soon as you can. It's an amazing story. Brown does what all great writers do. He makes you forget that you're reading. Can't wait to see what's next.

Rating:
Summary: Perfectly simple!!
Review: Larry Brown gets better with each book published. This book is quintessential Larry Brown. Simple, sparse, and completely accessible. Some people may be surprised at the lighter tones in this book of essays. It just goes to show the honesty in everything Brown writes. I have a little Larry Brown story that I think his fans would appreciate. I had the pleasure of hearing Brown read from Billy Ray's Farm at a bookshop in New York City. By mistake someone in the press printed the time of the reading incorrectly by almost two hours. Two people walked in and were devastated that they missed his reading. One of the employees told them that he was still in the back if they wanted to go talk to them. They were both a little awestruck. They're huge fans of his. After getting up the nerve they went up to them and told them how much his writing meant to them and how sorry they were to miss the reading. So what do you think he did? He took these two people into a corner of the store and read two chapters to them. Only them. It was a great thing to see and it's that quality that comes through in all of his stories. Truth and fiction. He is by far my favorite writer working today. I'm a big fan of Jim Harrison and Harry Crews as well, being from the south. If you haven't read "Fay" yet, pick it up as soon as you can. It's an amazing story. Brown does what all great writers do. He makes you forget that you're reading. Can't wait to see what's next.

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Summary: Brown's Essays From Tula
Review: Larry Brown's newest book of non-fiction, Billy Ray's Farm, gives anyone with an interest in the author's background a generous helping of what his life is like, both as a writer and a man. The title essay alone is worth the price of admission, but one also gets literary tributes to Harry Crews, Madison Jones, and Madison Bell; ruminations on growing up in rural Mississippi and how his life has changed since becoming a writer; explorations of the joys and difficulties of fatherhood; and healthy doses of the Mississippi landscape that comes to life so memorably in his novels. In its scope, the book reminds one of Crews' own Blood And Grits--the language is sparse but tough and to the point, and the reader never quite knows which realm of the heart and mind and hand the next page will reveal. If you're a fan of Brown's novels, this book will only deepen your understanding of where his material comes from and how faithful he is to it. If you've never read his fiction, this book is a perfect introduction to the world according to Brown.

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Summary: Earthy essays on rural life written with a natural innocence
Review: One of these days when I get through cleaning up from the storm, I'm going to start building a little cabin, right over there above the pond, up in the deep part of that shade.--Larry Brown

Larry Brown has published seven earlier works: two books of short stories (Facing the Music and Big Bad Love), an acclaimed memoir (On Fire), and four novels (Dirty Work, Joe, Father and Son, and Fay).

Billy Ray's Farm contains ten essays dealing with, among other things, the author's struggling apprenticeship to become a published author {"Harry Crews: Mentor and Friend"), his unsuccessful stalking of a goat-killing coyote ("Goatsongs"), the heartbreak of cow ownership and his son's frustrated efforts to build a thriving cattle business ("Billy Ray's Farm"), a big "fish grab" at the Enid Spillway ("So Much Fish, So Close to Home"), and his determination to carve an enclave out of the wilderness by building single-handedly a ten-by-twelve cabin ("Shack").

City slickers unfamiliar with rural life will learn from Brown all about calfpullers and other arcane mysteries.

Like Hemingway, Brown writes with a sparse, down-to-earth, no-nonsense style, with a clarity and precision unlike the convoluted sentences of Faulkner's turgid prose. When critics compare Brown to Faulkner, therefore, they do not mean the tempo of Brown's style but rather the tone of his stories, which, like Faulkner, are written from the heart and spirit, with compassion and a love for the land and people of Mississippi, Brown's microcosmic "postage stamp" universe.

By the way, in case you've never been there, Tula is a small town situated some twenty miles miles south-southeast of Oxford, Miss. (the site of Faulkner's home).

Brown writes with honesty and (often self-deprecating) humor, albeit a melancholy humor tinged with irony. His earthy language has a natural innocence, like cow droppings on a footpath.

In "discovering" Larry Brown, I am a Johnny-come-lately. Billy Ray's Farm is the first of his works I have read, but it definitely will not be the last.

If you grow weary of the stale stuff abounding nowadays, Billy Ray's Farm will revive you like a fresh breeze blowing through the live oak trees.