I read another book by Rick Bragg earlier this year, and I liked it despite the fact that Rick Bragg wrote it about himself, and…he’s kind of an ass. BUT this book focuses on his rather impressive grandfather, who comes across as much more likable, and Bragg still manages to write it in the friendly chatting style that I really enjoyed in All Over but the Shoutin’. “It is true that almost everyone in the foothills farmed and hunted, so there were no breadlines, no […]
“Every life deserves a certain amount of dignity, no matter how poor or damaged the shell that carries it.”
I read All Over But the Shoutin’ on the recommendation of another Cannonballer, and agree wholeheartedly with his/her review: the beginning of the book fascinated me, and Rick Bragg is kind of a dick. “One: Don’t kill yourself. Two: Don’t kill each other. Three: Try hard not to kill nobody else, but if you have to, better if it ain’t fam’ly.” Like many other memoirs I’ve read, Rick Bragg was raised by a hard working saint of a mother while his asshole father flitted in and […]
All Over But the Criticism
Rick Bragg’s memoir, All Over But the Shoutin’, has a lot of potential. He ostensibly claims it is a story about his mother and growing up extremely poor in Northeastern Alabama. Bragg grew up with a single mother and a father who drank a lot, and somehow turned into a reporter for the New York Times who won a Pulitzer Prize. Bragg does some things really well with this book. His depiction of his mother is of a wonderful woman who gave up everything to […]