all over but the shout'n

While at work early in the week my mother plopped a library book down on the conference table. She said she thought I might like reading it because the author was raised not far from here and had won the Pulitzer Prize (big whup). The name of the book is All Over But The Shout'n by Rick Bragg. I had little interest in her recommendation but read the first few pages anyway. My mother said that she knew that I didn't read much but thought that I might like it. She's right, I don't read much. I can't tell you how many books I've started and have quickly abandoned because most authors can't keep my attention. It's one thing to write and another to be really good at it. Rick Bragg is really good at it. I couldn't help but keep turning the pages. There was no putting that book down.

The author is my age and grew up out toward the direction of Piedmont/Jacksonville. His family was poor, abandoned by his alcoholic father and raised by his mother. I was raised in a middle class intact family (6 kids total) by my mom and dad. Even though this guy grew at the same time I did, in the same part of the state, it was as if he grew up in some third world country. I recognized so many street names and places that run in his memory. I've driven down most of those roads he had but his world was so different. I related his story more to those I've heard tell from my mother and father in-law. The poverty and hardships that Bragg's family went through makes his front door so far from mine. That's life. All men, all neighbors, all with individual hardships, with stories of their own trials and passage. I am glad Rick Bragg wrote of his.

I enjoyed his story immensely. I appreciate the way in which each word was placed and each sentence crafted. No, I don't finish many books that I start but this book so worth the read.