Ava’s Man by Rick Bragg

If you subscribe to the popular magazine Southern Living, then most likely you - like me - have yanked the latest issue straight from the mailbox and opened up to the last page to read Rick Bragg’s column, Southern Journal. Anyone born anywhere due south of Maryland will understand Rick’s flavorful, sometimes sobering and always humorous references to life in the South — and if you weren’t born in the South, you will definitely garner a new understanding of the people of the region.

Born into a family of front porch storytellers in the Northeastern Alabama foothills, Rick Bragg was raised primarily by his mother, Margaret.  His father, a Korean War veteran, struggled with alcoholism and domestic abuse, remaining absent for most of Rick’s childhood. Margaret worked hard and sacrificed many comforts (including not buying a new dress for 18 years) to support her three growing sons by picking cotton, taking in laundry for payment and cleaning houses. But what she also gave her boys in the long run was even more sustaining… a deep devoted love for their family, flawed though it may be, and an enduring fondness for her magic in the kitchen.

Rick will tell you himself that his childhood was abundant in both deeply-rooted love and dirt poor hardship.  But all of his combined experiences left him with the wonderful ability to be a full & rich voice of his people - both in Northeastern Alabama and around the South. His insightful gift of language makes reading his works profoundly satisfying.  His gift of storytelling is intimate - sifted through the rough Foothills earth and his personal history of living in the Deep South, lyrical and well-crafted.

“It is easy to be liked when the world has no jagged edges, when life is electric blankets and peach ice cream. But to be beloved, a man needs a dragon.”
― Rick Bragg, Ava's Man

Rick Bragg worked as a journalist for several newspapers before writing for the New York Times and it was coverage with the Times that won him the Pulitzer Price for Feature Writing in 1996.  His honors have also included a Nieman fellowship at Harvard University, the Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer of the Year for 2009 and more than 50 awards for writing over the years.

But it is his books about home, family and living in the South that have so endeared him to his large body of followers.  His trilogy of stories about his family - All Over but the Shoutin’ (1997), Ava’s Man (2001) and the Prince of Frogtown (2008) combine to give a portrait of his mother (All Over but the Shoutin’), his maternal grandfather (Ava’s Man) and his father (Prince Of Frogtown).

Published in 2001, Ava’s Man was Rick Bragg’s own journey to discovering the grandfather he never knew.  To do that, he set out to collect stories.  He laughed and cried with elderly aunts, family friends and former neighbors, listening to their stories and still vivid memories.  When asked in an interview if he put all of his relatives' stories in, Rick stated that there were definitely a few that were withheld from print “so that he would still be invited to their Thanksgiving table”.  He wasn’t going to risk that.


“What kind of man was this, I wondered, who is so beloved, so missed, that the mere mention of his death would make them cry forty-two years after he was preached into the sky?”
― Rick Bragg, Ava's Man

Ava’s Man became a colorful portrait of Rick’s hard-living, largely uneducated moonshiner grandfather, Charlie Bundrum, who supported his wife and eight children during the Great Depression by working as roofer, bootlegger, carpenter, general laborer & skilled fisherman who could catch catfish (and even squirrels) with his hand.

Through the worst of the Depression, his family always managed to have food on the table and fierce protection from a man with a deeply ingrained sense of what was expected and what was right.  He was proud and self reliant.  Wanting to be informed and not “ignorant”, he had his wife Ava read the newspaper to him every day at the kitchen table.

Ava’s Man is a book that will make you hungry for cornbread and pinto beans. For catfish and hush puppies and darkly sweet iced tea. You will remember hot, dusty summers and the shock of cold creek water. Many readers over the years have regaled Rick Bragg with stories of their own fathers and grandfathers that were “just like Charlie Bundrum”.  It is easy to find yourself in the well-crafted writing of any of Rick’s works, but Ava’s Man is especially fertile and ripe for remembering your own family history.

We will visit this contemporary Southern classic with this quarter’s read - Ava’s Man by Rick Bragg - to be discussed over a Spring Book Breakfast on Saturday, March 28, 2020. Give this deep & rich book a read and see if you see a little of your own family through the pages.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

It’s not the highest recommendation for picking up this novel to read - but let’s face it - Mansfield Park probably ranks as the “least loved” of the Jane Austen novels and its protagonist, Fanny Price as the “least interesting” of Miss Austen’s leading characters.  

The characters in Mansfield Park have a long history of initiating great debate amongst readers - both in Jane Austen’s era and in our own.  Readers have consistently found the primary characters in Jane Austen’s first two published novels - Sense And Sensibility and Pride And Prejudice - much easier to relate to and empathize with, unlike Fanny Price and honestly more likable and appealing on first glance. 

We follow Fanny from a painfully shy and delicate 10 year old, who is taken from her impoverished parents and their crowded and noisy home in Portsmouth to live with wealthy relatives, where she is emotionally secluded, dependent and unloved - except for one significant person in her life.

And about Fanny…  Is she really that weak?  Priggish? Even ridiculously timid (at least to our standards)? We tend to find Fanny difficult to relate to -  but is she a heroine in disguise?

As an intelligent, kind, principled and observant young woman - can we see her become a bright role model for standing firm in the face of intense peer pressure? For holding on and continuing to represent the core values that are so vital to her character?  

Fanny Price doesn’t have the daring sparkle of an Elizabeth Bennet or the serene poise of Elinor Dashwood,  but underneath her timid nature there is a firm and unwavering moral resolve that is certainly worth some appreciation.

In her mid-thirties Jane Austen began her 3rd published novel -  Mansfield Park - during February of 1811, finished it sometime after June 1813 and saw it published in July of 1814.  With a closer look we can acknowledge that the work shows the seasoned and refined thoughts of a mature woman, including themes and character development that are deep, multi-layered and varied - albeit not always enjoyable. 

It is important to have a perspective on English society as it existed at the time that Mansfield Park was set to get the full import of names, events, emotions and ideas.  Over all of Jane Austen’s novels, this work may have the most cultural reference to events and actions throughout the novel.  Why were private theatricals such a problem for Fanny? Did this book take any stance on slavery? How was the Church perceived in Regency England? How did Fanny and the other female characters in the novel measure up to feminine standards of the day?

So - if Mansfield Park ranks as “least loved” of the Jane Austen novels. Do you agree?  Would you rate it higher? Does it have the least “modern” viewpoint of all the Austen novels?  Could its commentary on love and marriage end up leaving it an “anti-romance”.

There are no accidentals in Jane Austen’s writing - everything has a purpose.  Mansfield Park is most assuredly worth a close read.

We will commence our 2020/2021 Reading Plan with a revisit to Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park to be discussed over a Winter Book Breakfast. Take some time to ponder why the “Fanny Price Controversy” amongst readers. We will be discussing this book on Saturday, January 25, 2020.