All Over but the Shoutin' - Hardcover

Bragg, Rick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679442588 ISBN 13: 9780679442585

Publisher: Pantheon, 1997

Synopsis

A haunting memoir about growing up dirt-poor in the Alabama hills--and about moving on but never really being able to leave.

The extraordinary gifts for evocation and insight and the stunning talent for story- telling that earned Rick Bragg a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 1996 are here brought to bear on the wrenching story of his own family's life. It is the story of a war-haunted, hard-drinking father and a strong-willed, loving mother who struggled to protect her sons from the effects of poverty and ignorance that had constricted her own life. It is the story of the life Bragg was able to carve out for himself on the strength of his mother's encouragement and belief. And it is the story of his attempts to both atone for and avenge the mistakes and cruelties of his past.

All Over but the Shoutin' is a gripping account of people struggling to make sense and solidity of life's capricious promises. A classic piece of Americana, it is made vividly, movingly particular by Rick Bragg's searching vision, generous humor, and richly nuanced voice.

About this title

Review:

One reason Rick Bragg won a Pulitzer Prize for his feature articles at the New York Times is that he never forgets his roots. When he writes about death and violence in urban slums, Bragg draws on firsthand knowledge of how poverty deforms lives and on his personal belief in the dignity of poor people. His memoir of a hardscrabble Southern youth pays moving tribute to his indomitable mother and struggles to forgive his drunken father. All Over but the Shoutin' is beautifully achieved on both these counts--and many more.

From the Publisher:

"An absolutely wonderful book."
--Russell Baker

"Rick Bragg writes like a man on fire. And All Over but the Shoutin' is a work of art. While reading this book, I fell in love with Rick Bragg's mother, Margaret Bragg, a hundred times. I felt like I was reading one of the prophets in the Old Testament when reading parts of this book. I thought of Melville, I thought of Faulkner. Because I love the English language, I knew I was reading one of the best books I've ever read. By explaining his life to the world, Rick Bragg explained part of my life to me. You feel things in every line this man writes. His sentences bleed on you. I wept when the book ended. I never met Rick Bragg in my life, but I called him up and told him he'd written a masterpiece, and I sent flowers to his mother."
--Pat Conroy

"Searingly honest, beautifully written, All Over but the Shoutin' is perhaps the most courageous thing Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Rick Bragg has ever written. Making his reputation on his "dark gothic" stories of urban riots, community disasters, and Haitian bloodbaths, Bragg has never failed to record the grace and dignity of people who live their lives in the margins. All Over but the Shoutin' is one more such story. But it is braver because the marginal people he gives us are himself, a child of "poor white Southern trash," and his family--an alcoholic, mostly absent father, and an extraordinary mother, quietly heroic in the face of devastating poverty. Bragg looks down the corridors of his past with love, hate, humor, regret, self-doubt, and understanding. In the telling, he may occasionally flinch, but he never turns away."
--Willie Morris

About this edition

• Publisher: Pantheon
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0679442588
• ISBN 13: 9780679442585
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 329