All Over but the Shoutin'
“One of ten other biographies I recommend.”
Why it is worth your time
All Over but the Shoutin' is Rick Bragg's 1997 memoir of growing up poor in the hills of northeastern Alabama. His father, a Korean War veteran and alcoholic, left the family; his mother picked cotton and went without so her 3 sons could eat. Bragg left college without a degree, reached the New York Times, and won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 1996. Jason listed it on his January 2019 post of 10 biographies, where he argued that outsiders should read the lives of people who made it in to learn the route. Bragg's is a pure case: no credentials, no connections, just reporting. It suits readers who like Southern memoir and anyone who came from a similar place. The caveat is tone. Publishers Weekly called the narrative uneven and jolting, and the Denver Post found a maudlin note at points, though others call it unsentimental.
