Synopses & Reviews
In
Billy Ray's Farm, Larry Brown brings the appealing blend of candor, humor, and poignancy of his acclaimed novels
Fay and
Father and Son to nine personal essays that explore the emotional and physical landscape of the corner of Mississippi he calls home. The centerpiece of this collection offers a moving description of life on his son's cattle farm, capturing Brown's deep-seated attachment to his family and to the land. In other pieces, Brown takes readers inside the writing cabin he built, chronicles his attempt to outsmart a wily coyote intent on killing the farm's baby goats, and reveals his reactions to being constantly compared to William Faulkner, a writer inspired by the same geography. Threaded through each piece are warm reflections on the Southern musicians and authors who influenced his writings.
At once entertaining and insightful, Billy Ray's Farm brilliantly illuminates how a great writer responds, personally and artistically, to the patch of land he lives on, providing a wonderful look into the mysterious sources of a writer's motivation.
Review
Jonathan Yardley The Washington Post Brown is the real thing: a self-taught country boy...whose heart is obviously, and wholly, in the country he loves.
Review
Monty Leitch The Roanoke Times Read this book. Read it for the clarity of its prose, the vividness of its imagery...its emotional honesty and its humor...its beauty and wisdom and its grit. Just read it.
Review
Jeff Kunerth The Orlando Sentinel Sometimes it doesn't matter what a writer writes. It's all good. Larry Brown has reached that point in his career.
Review
Bob Minzehseimer USA Today Brown's essays are built out of small, often raw details. His matter-of-fact sentences are simple, even flat; but strung together, flow into rhythms worthy of his favorite blues guitarists.
About the Author
Larry Brown is the author of eight books, including
Fay, Father and Son, and the memoir
On Fire. He received the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Literature and the Southern Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 1992 and 1997. He received the University of North Carolina's second Thomas Wolfe Prize and Lectureship. He lives near Oxford, Mississippi.
Table of Contents
Contents Prologue
By the Pond
Thicker than Blood
Harry Crews:
Mentor and Friend
Chattanooga Nights
Billy Ray's Farm
Fishing with Charlie
So Much Fish, So Close to Home
An Improv
The Whore in Me
Goatsongs
Shack