Ava's Man
by Bragg, Rick
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Fine in Fine Dust Jacket
- ISBN 10
- 0375410627
- ISBN 13
- 9780375410628
- Seller
-
Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York, New York: Alfred A Knopf Inc. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 2001. First Edition. Hard Cover. 259 pages: 6.5 x 9.5 in.: 1.8: KB#002769: Dustjacket now protected by a new Brodart Mylar Cover. Scarce, Out Of Print, Book. Editorial Review from Publishers Weekly: "Following up his bestselling memoir, All Over But the Shoutin', Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bragg again creates a soulful, poignant portrait of working-class Southern life by looking deep into his own family history. This new volume recounts the life of his maternal grand father, Charlie Bundrum, who died in 1958, one year before Rick was born. Lacking a grandfather, the New York Times reporter sets out to build one "from dirt level, using half-forgotten sayings, half-remembered stories and a few yellowed, brittle, black-and-white photographs. "His investigations in the Appalachian foothills along the Georgia-Alabama border turn up a beloved, larger-than-life rambler who inspired backwoods legend among contemporaries, undying devotion from his wife, Ava, and unabashed love and awe from his large extended family. Big-hearted but flawed, Bundrum was a man of contradiction. Genuinely devoted to his wife and children, he was a tenuous provider (a roofer by trade, he also cooked and frequently tasted his own moonshine) who fiercely defended his clan from trouble and hardship even as he occasionally brought it on them. He lived by a code of country justice that tolerated brawling with lawmen but disdained bullying, distinguished "good, solid biblical cursing" from mere "ugly talk, " and forswore spitting in the presence of ladies. Bragg strives for an unvarnished portrait and succeeds, mostly balancing tremendous affection for his grandfather with the recognition that Bundrum, the last of his kind and a connection to a culture of backwoods self-sufficiency long dead in the South, deserves and would demand an honest rendering. " He is so much more precious smelling of hot cornbread and whiskey than milk and honey. " .
Synopsis
The Pulitzer Prize--winning author of All Over but the Shoutin' continues his personal history of the Deep South with an evocation of his mother's childhood in the Appalachian foothills during the Great Depression, and the magnificent story of the man who raised her.Charlie Bundrum was a roofer, a carpenter, a whiskey-maker, a fisherman who knew every inch of the Coosa River, made boats out of car hoods and knew how to pack a wound with brown sugar to stop the blood. He could not read, but he asked his wife, Ava, to read him the paper every day so he would not be ignorant. He was a man who took giant steps in rundown boots, a true hero whom history would otherwise have overlooked.In the decade of the Great Depression, Charlie moved his family twenty-one times, keeping seven children one step ahead of the poverty and starvation that threatened them from every side. He worked at the steel mill when the steel was rolling, or for a side of bacon or a bushel of peaches when it wasn't. He paid the doctor who delivered his fourth daughter, Margaret--Bragg's mother--with a jar of whiskey. He understood the finer points of the law as it applied to poor people and drinking men; he was a banjo player and a buck dancer who worked off fines when life got a little sideways, and he sang when he was drunk, where other men fought or cussed. He had a talent for living. His children revered him. When he died, cars lined the blacktop for more than a mile.Rick Bragg has built a soaring monument to the grandfather he never knew--a father who stood by his family in hard times and left a backwoods legend behind--in a book that blazes with his love for his family, and for a particular stretch of dirt road along the Alabama-Georgia border. A powerfully intimate piece of American history as it was experienced by the working people of the Deep South, a glorious record of a life of character, tenacity and indomitable joy and an unforgettable tribute to a vanishing culture, Ava's Man is Rick Bragg at his stunning best.
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Details
- Bookseller
- KEENER BOOKS (Member IOBA)
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 002769
- Title
- Ava's Man
- Author
- Bragg, Rick
- Format/Binding
- Hard Cover
- Book Condition
- Used - Fine in Fine Dust Jacket
- Edition
- First Edition
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN 10
- 0375410627
- ISBN 13
- 9780375410628
- Publisher
- Alfred A Knopf Inc
- Place of Publication
- New York, New York
- Date Published
- 2001
- Keywords
- Depressions, United States, Biography
Terms of Sale
KEENER BOOKS (Member IOBA)
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About the Seller
KEENER BOOKS (Member IOBA)
Biblio member since 2005
Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin
About KEENER BOOKS (Member IOBA)
Keener Books (Member IOBA) (Keener Books & Collectibles, LLC) is an exclusively online bookdealer, located in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, near Milwaukee, Wisconsin on the southwest side of Lake Michigan.We specialize in books relating to food, fine dining and entertainment, although we also carry books in many other subjects, mostly non-fiction.All of the photos shown are actual pictures of our books. We do not use stock images. What you see is what you receive.
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- Fine
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