Book Review: All Over But the Shoutin’

Review by Bill London, from the April 2003 Newsletter

Rick Bragg was raised in backwoods Alabama, one of three brothers born to a hard-working mother and a drunk no-good father. He readily describes his family as poor white trash. He grew up fighting, with a determination to prove himself, and used his skills as a story-teller and risk-taker to make it to the top of his profession. He became the New York Times correspondent stationed in Atlanta, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 1996.

His autobiography, All Over But the Shoutin’, shows that his writing award was given for a good reason. His prose sucks the reader into his mean-streak life with wrenching scenes like the description of the time his mother finally dumped out his father’s stash of moonshine. When his father came home drunk and looked for more, his mother removed her glasses just asking that he not knock out any more teeth this time. It’s not all horrors. The book really is a celebration of his family and grand retelling of some of the great lives he visited as a feature reporter. Bragg is so talented that his book kept me up too late several nights in a row.

Bill London edits this newsletter and found this book at the Moscow Public Library.

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