Ava's Man - Bragg

Poka Bean recommended "All Over But the Shoutin'" by Rick Bragg awhile back and I devoured it in one sitting. Today, it was the same with "Ava's Man". Rick Bragg is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author, who writes in these books about his family, his family history in the south. The words, the sentences, the metaphors fall on the page and into your soul with the same slow, rhythmic pulse of a southern accent. His family, his relatives are every bit as American as we might ever know, every bit as human, as real as tangible. He shares the joys and the sorrows, the rights and the wrongs, the evil and the good, making up a whole of a person, and he does it all with such grace, such humility, such honesty that you cannot help but find yourself transformed by the experience.

If you have not read anything by Rick Bragg, plan to. At some point, let the phrases of his books roll through your mind like a summer thunderstorm. Let the people of his life enter into yours as your own family. Let the love and the heritage of his past linger long after you close the book and set it back on the shelf. Bragg's writing is the most un-forced, natural flow of words that I have ever read. And the ease with which you will feel a part of his history is remarkable.