All Over but the Shoutin' | All over but the Shoutin'

From Thoughts, To Feelings, To Words | All over but the Shoutin' | Rick Bragg

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	• All over but the Shoutin' Rick Bragg Vintage, 1998 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 296 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Great, Poetic story

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

All Over but the Shoutin'

I can relate to this author's book because I had a similar background. Bragg inspires me to want to write my own story. I liked his book so much that I've bought two others.

From Thoughts, To Feelings, To Words

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.

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Giant Chip

This book contains some of Bragg's experiences on his way to winning the Pulitzer Prize. Bragg was born into a poor family in rural Alabama. His father was an abusive drunk, which eventually led his mother to take shelter in her parents' small house, where she raised her three sons. Bragg describes how these early experiences of deprivation and abuse colored his view on life, giving him the drive to strive for professional success as a means of proving to the world that it had not defeated him. He gives all credit for what he has become to his momma, who sacrificed her own dreams to help him survive. Bragg also recounts details of his career, which took him from Alabama to Haiti to Harvard University and the New York Times and finally to the Pulitzer Prize.

Much of Bragg's story is his struggle to build a self-image that he can be satisfied with. He describes the painful miseries of class, and of the prejudices shown to those who come from the wrong side of the tracks. He tells how he grew up ashamed of his identity and background, and how he often wished he could be somebody else. Although parts of the story are engagingly told, many parts of the book do not resonant with me. Being born into a poor family does not in itself make one a member of the lowest class. Attitude and upbringing play very important roles. My grandfather was a career hod carrier-that is, when he could find work. Frequently drunk and verbally abusive, he raised his four children in Skunk Hollow, as the rich folks in town referred to his run-down neighborhood. But he never missed an opportunity to remind his kids that "You're just as good as anybody else. It's not how much money you have or how you're dressed but who you are that counts." The kids all took this message to heart and went on to make something of their lives, never embarrassed about their background or feeling subordinate in any way to others, and certainly never asking for pity. Bragg's family, especially his father's relatives, based their pride on racism, on putting others down, which seems like a very weak foundation for building a self-identity. Bragg comes across as having a huge chip on his shoulder, of wanting to parade his miserable childhood in front of others as a means of eliciting sympathy and perhaps guilt from those who started off with more privileges. In Haiti, he began to get an inkling of how many luxuries his early life actually had, when judged on a global scale. But he's still struggling to incorporate these lessons into his outlook.

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Adam Garlick

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.

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