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This title in other editions

Ecology of a Cracker Childhood

by Janisse Ray

Ecology of a Cracker Childhood Cover

ISBN13: 9781571312471
ISBN10: 1571312471
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

 

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Janisse Ray grew up in a junkyard along U.S. Highway 1, hidden from Florida-bound vacationers by the hedge at the edge of the road and by hulks of old cars and stacks of blown-out tires. Ecology of a Cracker Childhood tells how a childhood spent in rural isolation and steeped in religious fundamentalism grew into a passion to save the almost vanished longleaf pine ecosystem that once covered the South. In language at once colloquial, elegiac, and informative, Ray redeems two Souths.

Review:

"Suffused with the same history-haunted sense of loss that imprints so much of the South and its literature. What sets Ecology of a Cracker Childhood apart is the ambitious and arresting mission implied in its title....Heartfelt and refreshing." The New York Times Book Review

Review:

"In [this book], you can open any page and out will fall words like pressed flowers and autumn leaves, vivid souvenirs of joy and loss....A memoir, a family history, and the ecology of a dying place, the book pivots between land and people, embracing both as rare and fragile. We are swept along like the resinous odor of pine needles in the balmy wind." Bloomsbury Review, January 2000* Glenda Burnside

Review:

"What sets Ecology of a Cracker Childhood apart is the ambitious and arresting mission implied in its title. Ray's lament for a lost landscape and a lost way of life centers on a South that has little acquaintance with cotillions, columned mansions or cotton plantations....[Her] passion for preserving and restoring this unsung landscape is heartfelt and refreshing. Ray's paeans to pokeweed and yellow pine become repetitive....[But h]er prose is much leaner and more affecting when she returns to the raw, man-made world in which she was raised, and the resourceful 'crackers' who inhabit it." Tony Horwitz, New York Times Book Review

Review:

"It's a compelling story, briefly told: For all the pine cones on its pages, [this book] is a bit short on biology, or even cracklin' good natural history....No matter: The memoir is better reading anyway, building from well-told tales of a skinned-knee girlhood in the junkyard flats of south Georgia." Jay Hardwig, Austin Chronicle

Synopsis:

Having grown up in a junkyard along U.S. Highway 1, Ray tells how a childhood spent in rural isolation and steeped in religious fundamentalism grew into a passion to save the almost-vanished longleaf pine ecosystem that once covered the South. 16 illustrations.

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:

jwatkins53, June 5, 2006 (view all comments by jwatkins53)
I've just finished Ms. Ray's Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, and for someone born among the pines and cypress along the northern edge of the Everglades, I found the visceral honesty and courage in the sensibility at the heart of her work akin to being full grown and having your mama slap you for using a curse word she's already warned you about. An amazing work, full of poetry and soul, and a ruthless clarity that yanks you up by your lapels face-to-face with the barren arrogance of destroying such an ageless, spirtual, and intricate landscape as she grew up in. The chapter entitled Clearcut is the most powerful piece of a marvelous whole as I have read since the Grand Inquisitor; at once a prayer, a lament, and a prophetic warning.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9781571312471
Author:
Ray, Janisse
Publisher:
Milkweed Editions
Location:
Minneapolis
Subject:
Biography
Subject:
Environmental Science
Subject:
Environmental Conservation & Protection
Subject:
Ecology
Subject:
Forest ecology
Subject:
Regional Subjects - South
Subject:
Deforestation
Subject:
Longleaf pine.
Subject:
Consumption
Subject:
Baxley
Subject:
Environmental Conservation & Protection - General
Subject:
Consumption (Economics) -- Social aspects.
Subject:
Biography - General
Subject:
Environmental Studies-Environment
Copyright:
Edition Number:
1st pbk. ed.
Edition Description:
Trade Paper
Series:
The World As Home
Series Volume:
106-511
Publication Date:
20000731
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Language:
English
Illustrations:
15 B&W illustrations
Pages:
224
Dimensions:
8.5 x 5.5 in 13 oz

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Ecology of a Cracker Childhood Used Trade Paper
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$10.50 In Stock
Product details 224 pages Milkweed Editions - English 9781571312471 Reviews:
"Review" by , "Suffused with the same history-haunted sense of loss that imprints so much of the South and its literature. What sets Ecology of a Cracker Childhood apart is the ambitious and arresting mission implied in its title....Heartfelt and refreshing."
"Review" by , "In [this book], you can open any page and out will fall words like pressed flowers and autumn leaves, vivid souvenirs of joy and loss....A memoir, a family history, and the ecology of a dying place, the book pivots between land and people, embracing both as rare and fragile. We are swept along like the resinous odor of pine needles in the balmy wind."
"Review" by , "What sets Ecology of a Cracker Childhood apart is the ambitious and arresting mission implied in its title. Ray's lament for a lost landscape and a lost way of life centers on a South that has little acquaintance with cotillions, columned mansions or cotton plantations....[Her] passion for preserving and restoring this unsung landscape is heartfelt and refreshing. Ray's paeans to pokeweed and yellow pine become repetitive....[But h]er prose is much leaner and more affecting when she returns to the raw, man-made world in which she was raised, and the resourceful 'crackers' who inhabit it."
"Review" by , "It's a compelling story, briefly told: For all the pine cones on its pages, [this book] is a bit short on biology, or even cracklin' good natural history....No matter: The memoir is better reading anyway, building from well-told tales of a skinned-knee girlhood in the junkyard flats of south Georgia."
"Synopsis" by , Having grown up in a junkyard along U.S. Highway 1, Ray tells how a childhood spent in rural isolation and steeped in religious fundamentalism grew into a passion to save the almost-vanished longleaf pine ecosystem that once covered the South. 16 illustrations.
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