Synopses & Reviews
Burkhard Bilger vividly captures a world that lies outside the familiar images of life in the United States in the twenty-first century in eight superbly crafted essays about little-known corners of the South. It is a world in which grown men catch catfish with their bare hands, crowds of people cheer on chickens as they fight to the death, and a woman moves into a trailer home when her house burns down just so she can continue hunting 350 nights a year. Bilger records the eccentric and sometimes downright bizarre behavior he encounters with humor and wit but nary a whisper of mockery. In essays that combine history, anecdotes, and personal observations, he describes each activity, its origins, its dangers, and its pleasures. But Noodling for Flatheads is much more than a survey of unlikely pastimes. Through lively portraits of the participants, Bilger illuminates the obsessive individualism that is at the heart of the American spirit.
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Jonathan Yardley The Washington Post Smart, clear-eyed, witty, and unsentimental, not to mention quite agreeably surprising.
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Jonathan Yardley
The Washington Post
Smart, clear-eyed, witty, and unsentimental, not to mention quite agreeably surprising.
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Caroline Fraser Outside A fascinating look into rural America's intimate, uneasy relationship with the animal life that surrounds it -- both wild and domesticated.
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Ted Lee The New York Times A collection of powerful essays...[Bilger's] lyrical narratives thrum with energy and affection.
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Newsweek Meticulous reporting and graceful writing -- with zero condescension.
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John Seabrook author of Nobrow Leaving the Cineplex and The Gap far behind him, Burkhard Bilger goes searching for authentic American folk traditions, and finds among the cockfighters and squirrel eaters the kind of literary journalism not seen in these parts since John McPhee's travels in Georgia. A wonderful debut.
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Malcolm Gladwell author of The Tipping Point Burkhard Bilger has done for the South what Joseph Mitchell did for New York City. He has taken a seemingly familiar world and exposed its strange and bizarre and poignant soul.
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David Quammen, author of The Song of the Dodo and The Boilerplate Rhino Go out to the semi-lunatic fringe of any society, and you'll find charmingly aberrant folks whose weird tastes, notions, and practices tell you something, yes indeed, about values and origins back at the center. Burkhard Bilger knows that, and puts the knowledge to good use in this graceful, entertaining book.
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Gordon Grice, author of The Red Hourglass Noodling for Flatheads is terrific. Bilger's style is accessible and somehow unobtrusive even when he's delivering a knock-out bit of description, a feat he manages every five pages or so. I love the intelligence of these essays. They start in the quirkiest places and end up deep in the human heart. Just wonderful writing.
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E. Andra Whitworth The New York Times Book Review A rare and sometimes surprising glimpse of the American backwoods... Bilger's folksy descriptions of these eccentric pursuits are charming.
About the Author
Burkhard Bilger is a senior editor at Discover, writer for The New Yorker, and series editor for The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2001. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Table of Contents
ContentsIntroduction
Noodling for Flatheads
IN WHICH A FISH NEARLY EATS THE AUTHOR?S ARM.
Enter the Chicken
IN WHICH A SPORT BELOVED BY WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN IS DECLARED UN-AMERICAN.
Moonshine Sonata
IN WHICH THE AGE OF THE MICROBREWERY MEETS THE MODERN POLICE STATE, WITH INTOXICATING RESULTS.
Mad Squirrels and Kentuckians
IN WHICH NEITHER CHANGING CUSTOM, NOR PUBLIC OPPROBRIUM, NOR LEARNED MEDICAL OPINION CAN DISSUADE SOME PEOPLE FROM EATING A SMALL RODENT?S BRAIN.
The Mall of the Wild
IN WHICH A GEORGIA MAN, DREAMING OF THE ULTIMATE GAME FARM, CALLS FORTH A PLAGUE OF FROGS.
Send in the Hounds
IN WHICH DOGS CHASE RACCOONS, HUNTERS CHASE DOGS, THE AUTHOR CHASES HUNTERS, AND NO ONE KNOWS EXACTLY WHY.
Low on the Hog
IN WHICH A COOK?S SOUL IS TESTED BY A PLATE OF STEAMING INTESTINES.
The Rolley Holers
IN WHICH A FEW GOOD MEN, ARMED ONLY WITH THEIR THUMBS, CRUSH THE BRITISH AND MAKE THE FRENCH CRY.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS