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Title: Billy Ray's Farm : Essays from a Place Called Tula by Larry Brown ISBN: 0743225244 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: April, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33
Rating: 4
Summary: On Writing and Ranching
Comment: "What is it about Oxford [Mississippi] that produces writers?" It's a question Larry Brown, Barry Hannah and John Grisham get asked a lot. Brown says, "They always want to ask about Faulkner and what it all means, being a writer in Oxford, and where all the stories come from....
"I don't know what the answer is for anybody else, and I don't know what caused Faulkner to write," he explains, but "Most times, for any writer, I think it springs from some sort of yearning in the breast to let things out, to say something about the human condition, maybe just to simply to tell a story."
Of this, he knows plenty, for the essays in this memoir - I say "this," as opposed to "his," because I'm sure there will be many more - are stories of his life, so far; as a writer, indulgent father, and reluctant farmer.
Getting back to the question, he supposes it basically boils down to this: "Where do you get your ideas?" His response is "I believe that writers have to write what they know about. I don't think there's much choice in that." Elaborating, he says, "All [Faulkner] was doing was what every other writer does, and that is drawing upon the well of memory and experience and imagination that every writer pulls his or her material from. The things you know, the things you have seen or heard of, the things you can imagine. A writer rolls all that stuff together kind of like a taco and comes up with fiction. And I think whatever you write about, you have to know it. Concretely. Absolutely. Realistically."
Brown has an easy, honest way with language that is as smooth as Mississippi molasses. Describing the region around Tula, where he spent his teenage years, he writes, "The tall cypresses with their knees standing in water were hollow coon castles, the bark worn smooth on one side only from the steady traffic of coons scrambling up in the morning and down at night, regular as dairymen."
Reminiscing about his hunting expeditions with neighbors, he writes, "in the reserves of good memories we all hold, those times are special and seem magical to me, those nights in the woods and those days in the fields, those lessons in the wild."
Hunting is a tradition that weaves its way through Brown's family's generations, one he now shares with his sons: "They bring in ducks and squirrels and deer and doves, and I cook for them as my mother did for me, and they tell me their hunting stories, and I listen to catch their words."
In addition to letting us glimpse his personal life, Brown takes us down the long enduring road he's taken in becoming a writer. Deliberately seeking mentors in his early days as a writer, he found one when a friend lent him a copy of A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews. He would go on to read everything by the author he could get his hands on, and in the end, he's "grateful that a writer like him walks this earth."
Brown had written five unpublished novels by 1985, "and almost a hundred short stories that had, for the most part, gone begging also." Pulling 24-hour shifts at the Oxford fire department, working odd jobs on his off-days to make ends meet, and writing in his "spare" time, Brown burned one of his novels in his backyard and worked on his rejection-slip collection.
His "apprenticeship period" would span seven years - a relative bargain, considering Crews' lasted 10 - until his first book of short stories, Facing the Music, was accepted for publication.
Brown writes with such a subtle passion. Speaking of his son, Billy Ray, whose farm is the subject of the essay chosen for the book's title, he tells, "The barn leaks. It's an old barn, pretty ragged, but he's tried to fix it up. He's mowed yards since he was twelve years old, and worked as a butcher, and hauled hay, and laid sod, and worked on a hog farm. He's saved his money, and all he's ever wanted is to be a cattleman. And it's always hurt me deep that he has had such bad luck."
Perhaps Billy Ray should take a page from his father's history and realize that with a little luck and a lot of dedication, dreams come true.
Rating: 5
Summary: Best from Larry Brown in a while
Comment: I know these essays are compiled from a few scattered sources and were written here & there for the last couple of years, but the arrangement they get in this book reads like pure Larry Brown. Not since his takes on his firefighting career have I been more pleased with one of his offerings. "Fay" was, for me, lacking in stately elegance, taking itself just a little too seriously, while "Father and Son" was achingly forced in its cardboard intensity. The thing missing in those two works was a sense of humor, and it's back in "Billy Ray's Farm" in spades. A few laughs definitely give a laid-back funkiness to the proceedings, as his observations are concrete and believable (as usual) but at the same time entertaining and lively.
I have read all of Larry Brown's books, and he works best with a smile on his face. These essays find him grinning from ear to ear, and it's about time he regained that sense of playfulness and naughtiness he seemed to have lost with bot "Fay" and "Father and Son", which were heavy-handed and too simplistic in their approach. I'm glad he seems to have come back to Earth with these essays & I can't wait for more of the same.
Rating: 5
Summary: Perfectly simple!!
Comment: Larry Brown gets better with each book published. This book is quintessential Larry Brown. Simple, sparse, and completely accessible. Some people may be surprised at the lighter tones in this book of essays. It just goes to show the honesty in everything Brown writes. I have a little Larry Brown story that I think his fans would appreciate. I had the pleasure of hearing Brown read from Billy Ray's Farm at a bookshop in New York City. By mistake someone in the press printed the time of the reading incorrectly by almost two hours. Two people walked in and were devastated that they missed his reading. One of the employees told them that he was still in the back if they wanted to go talk to them. They were both a little awestruck. They're huge fans of his. After getting up the nerve they went up to them and told them how much his writing meant to them and how sorry they were to miss the reading. So what do you think he did? He took these two people into a corner of the store and read two chapters to them. Only them. It was a great thing to see and it's that quality that comes through in all of his stories. Truth and fiction. He is by far my favorite writer working today. I'm a big fan of Jim Harrison and Harry Crews as well, being from the south. If you haven't read "Fay" yet, pick it up as soon as you can. It's an amazing story. Brown does what all great writers do. He makes you forget that you're reading. Can't wait to see what's next.
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Title: Big Bad Love: Stories by Larry Brown ISBN: 0679734910 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: October, 1991 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Facing the Music: Stories (Front Porch Paperbacks) by Larry Brown ISBN: 1565121252 Publisher: Algonquin Books Pub. Date: September, 1996 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: On Fire by Larry Brown ISBN: 0446671142 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: May, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.99 |
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Title: Joe by Larry Brown ISBN: 0446394386 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: October, 1992 List Price(USD): $18.99 |
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Title: Dirty Work: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries) by Larry Brown ISBN: 0679730494 Publisher: Vintage Books Pub. Date: September, 1990 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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