All over but the Shoutin'

Rick Bragg reminds us of what it means to live in a country where one can work had and persue his or her dream. Mr. Bragg became a journalist working for the New York Times without a degree and carried with him the haunting of his hard scrabble youth. His mama reminds us of what it means to love someone so much that you will give up your strongest desire, even the desire for food, to provide for the one you love. While all of this is strong material for a story, it is Mr. Bragg's writing that makes this book a masterpiece of southern art. His words are beautiful, haunting, gritty and honest. In this book he bares the scars of his soul and we as the readers are all the better for it.

Rick Bragg's memoir All Over but the Shoutin' is a very touching book appealing to those with a love of humanity. Through tales of caring and love, along with instances of trial and tribulation, Bragg shows what it was like to grow up in the poor South during the years of the anti-segregation movement. In a time when drunken fighting was accepted and loosing a hand in the cotton mills was common, the love of family and especially from his mother propels Bragg out of the poverty in which he has been raised. This thought provoking recollection will take you to a time and place often overlooked by many.

In this novel, Rick Bragg offers up a no-holds-barre view on Southern Appalachia. This memoir is slightly different from others because it comes from a family who wasn't dirt poor or Black, but their strong family values prompted them to achieve what others could not. Bragg enjoys throwing the fact out that after his mother's marriage to a drunk, abusive man, she never bought herself her own dress. She was always sacrificing what she could grab for her three sons to have a life unexpected of those in that situation. And that meant every little thing.
The novel is primarily about Bragg's mother Margaret, who sacrifices almost everything she has, right down to her pride, for her sons. Bragg shows no apologies about her struggles through a generation of cotton picking, welfare, drunkeness, and poverty in the years of his youth. This memoir was enjoyable to read because of its almost poetic structure and feel. It was also relatable, because of where I live and the simpleness he portrays. Bragg writes with great nostaliga, which helps his book out tremendously because you can sense his longing to feel those times again, yet you can always sense a troubled view of how he shoudl've been a better son, or tried harder, when the reader knows that with this book, he has payed his mother back more than a new home and a plane ride could ever do.

I really liked this book. The writing is almost poetic and what is more, from the heart.

I've been there. I've done that. So glad Rick Bragg had the fortitude to put it into words for all kids, perhaps some yet unborn, subjected to an abusive parent, finding the one stable and loving person who inspired them to continue on and make it after all.