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The Prince of Frogtown
by
Rick Bragg
In this final volume of the beloved American saga that began with All Over but the Shoutin’ and continued with Ava’s Man, Rick Bragg closes his circle of family stories with an unforgettable tale about fathers and sons inspired by his own relationship with his ten-year-old stepson.
He learns, right from the start, that a man who chases a woman with a child is like a dog who...more
He learns, right from the start, that a man who chases a woman with a child is like a dog who...more
Audio CD, 0 pages
Published
May 6th 2008
by Random House Audio
(first published 2008)
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Bragg's third and last book in the trilogy about his family.
Nobody tells the story of the poverty and hard times of living in the foothills of the Appalachian's like Bragg does. He captures the resilency, strength and love of his people, because he lived it. The good times and the bad.
This final story is about his father. When Rick becomes the step-father of a ten-year boy, he seems to dig deep within to reflect on the father/son relationship.....something he never really had the opportunity to...more
Nobody tells the story of the poverty and hard times of living in the foothills of the Appalachian's like Bragg does. He captures the resilency, strength and love of his people, because he lived it. The good times and the bad.
This final story is about his father. When Rick becomes the step-father of a ten-year boy, he seems to dig deep within to reflect on the father/son relationship.....something he never really had the opportunity to...more
Bragg's third book about his origins in Alabama, this one deals with his alcoholic, unreliable father. There's a huge level of ego masquerading as self-deprecation here, as in, "look how poor I was" and "look how hard it is for me to relate to my own son," which all carry the implied "look how marvelous I am now for having gone through this," when really all he's done is be a better man than his father, not a hard job given the portrayal here. Still, Bragg can write and create a vivid mise-en-sc...more
I have forgotten just how powerful, how raw, how magical and how simply beautiful Rick Bragg's writing is. I never experienced the kind of life Rick had, never knew privations like his people did, never saw the rough side of life or experienced the spirit quenching miseries that they did.
...so why do I relate so much to it?
The best I can come up with is that reading Rick Bragg is like pulling back an unhealed scab and watching it bleed all over again. In the same way, it can sometimes hurt to re...more
...so why do I relate so much to it?
The best I can come up with is that reading Rick Bragg is like pulling back an unhealed scab and watching it bleed all over again. In the same way, it can sometimes hurt to re...more
I picked up this book from the library because it's a memoir and is about a step-father/step-son relationship, two things of interest to me and dear to my heart. I know very little about the American South, so wasn't sure I would really care much about it. I know more about China than I do parts of my own country, sadly enough. But Rick Bragg is such a good story teller and brings Alabama and Texas to life through his vibrant writing that I found myself not able to put the book down--and it wasn...more
May 22, 2008
Debra
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
biography-memoir,
nonfiction
Rick Bragg is an amazing writer with a gift for choosing the exact word or metaphor to make his point. In The Prince of Frogtown he examines fatherhood, looking both at his father and his stepson. His hard living, hard fighting, hard drinking father was a miserable SOB by most lights...but he kept good friends, and the love of his women, at least for a while.
Rick's family gives him excellent fodder for self examination. I'm glad I read these books and recommend them widely.
(This is the third of...more
Rick's family gives him excellent fodder for self examination. I'm glad I read these books and recommend them widely.
(This is the third of...more
Not as strong as "All Over but the Shoutin'" but still, no one evokes time and place among contemporary authors like Rick Bragg. He alternates stories about his much-reviled father -- a drunk who left his wife and three sons in the lurch -- with stories about him and his new stepson (his boy).
His portrait of his dad is more nuanced here, but the outcome of course does not change and you hurt all over again for his beloved mother. The stories about Bragg and his boy are delightful and fun to read...more
His portrait of his dad is more nuanced here, but the outcome of course does not change and you hurt all over again for his beloved mother. The stories about Bragg and his boy are delightful and fun to read...more
I love Rick Bragg's writing! In this third and last trilogy of his family memoirs he shares the struggles of his alcoholic father in an intricate merging of his own growing relationship with his stepson. "All Over But the Shouting" remains my favorite, but this is a good read with a powerful ending.
Reading that Rick is now a Professor of Writing at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa makes me want to go back to school!
Reading that Rick is now a Professor of Writing at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa makes me want to go back to school!
2 likes · like · see review
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Sep 07, 2008
Michelle
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
non-fiction,
memoirs
"All Over but the Shoutin'" and "Ava's Man" left me with a sense of something positive--well-being or even a slight modicum of peace, "The Prince of Frogtown" did the exact opposite--it saddened me and and angered me. Bragg discusses his father with a distance that makes him seem surreal so it's hard to feel emotion towards him. I did feel that sadness and anger towards Bragg himself when it came to his chapters about his step-son and his treatment of him. Though Bragg seems honest about himself...more
I think Rick Bragg is an evocative story teller, and I think his memoirs are strong, probably partially owing to him being a journalist. This third memoir is about his mostly absent father--who was written off as a mere footnote in his previous books. Bragg delves into his father's childhood and his growing up in a mill town in Appalachia and how this shaped his character, for better--and more often, worse. His father was a hard-drinking man, who fell further and further into the bottle, eventua...more
Sep 19, 2008
Melissa
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
poverty-and-or-homelessness,
memoir
Memorable quotes:
"We were driving through Piedmont...my grandfather Bobby was holding a bottle half hidden by a popcorn bag...I lived a long time after that believing you could hide any sin in the Bible if you had a big enough brown paper bag. I wish they made them people-sized. I would carry one in my trunk, or sleep in one, just to be sure."
"This is what it is like, I thought, to be the circus bear. You pace your cage until they let you out to do tricks. You talk about tuition, hardwood floors...more
"We were driving through Piedmont...my grandfather Bobby was holding a bottle half hidden by a popcorn bag...I lived a long time after that believing you could hide any sin in the Bible if you had a big enough brown paper bag. I wish they made them people-sized. I would carry one in my trunk, or sleep in one, just to be sure."
"This is what it is like, I thought, to be the circus bear. You pace your cage until they let you out to do tricks. You talk about tuition, hardwood floors...more
1 like · like · see review
I've now devoted enough time examining Rick Bragg's childhood. I get it. It was horrible. I enjoyed the first two volumes in this trilogy (All Over But the Shoutin' and Ava's Man) more than this one. I got the impression that he was meeting a deadline and rushed the writing. Basically the story of how after years of the single life, Bragg gets married to "the woman" and becomes the stepfather of a 10 year old boy. Believing that he is unsuited for stepfatherhood (is that a word? I doubt it.), he...more
Rick Bragg snatches you out of your own life and immerses you in his history in such a way that you feel you are his vicarious wing-man, only to realize that you are only witnessing the parallels of his and your own experiences. His trilogy of All Over But The Shoutin', Ava's Man, and The Prince of Frogtown is a must-read for anyone, especially the Southern Man, searching for their own identity.
There is an interesting comparison between Rick Bragg and Lewis Grizzard in that their individual char...more
There is an interesting comparison between Rick Bragg and Lewis Grizzard in that their individual char...more
Jul 29, 2008
Corny
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Ethel
Recommended to Corny by:
Claire Marx
Shelves:
non-fiction
This is a wonderful portrait of an Alabama family living in rural poverty during the 40s and 50s juxtaposed against a tale of a man and his stepson getting to know each other in the current century. Bragg is a wonderful storyteller, although sometimes I felt he went so far off track as to lose the thread. I guess these digressions are necessary to understand the author's father. However, the use of random incidents to explain the destructive behavior that ensued is the only false note in the nar...more
All Over But the Shoutin' is in my top ten books of all time. Yes, the titles on this list vary depending on my mood, but you'll surely find Rick Bragg in there somewhere. Like Mary Karr and her Liar's Club, like Peter Greenaway and his fluorescent world, like Mary Tyler Moore, Bragg gives everyday life a romance, a beauty, a humor. I can't comment yet on his Prince of Frogtown, but for the rest of his work...I'd like to live my life the way Rick Bragg writes.
...ok, now I've finished it and can
I missed the first two books in the trilogy, but I am happy I picked up the Prince of Frogtown in Book People. I was looking for a Summer read, and when I caught the cover and line "Double dog dares, Blow Pops, Cherry Bombs, Indian Burns, chicken fights and giggling half wit of choruses" I was hooked!
It turned out to be so much more, a wonderful Father/Son book! The relationship between Rick and his 10 year old step son makes this book tick! Rick a drinker/fighter grew up with a abusive father,...more
It turned out to be so much more, a wonderful Father/Son book! The relationship between Rick and his 10 year old step son makes this book tick! Rick a drinker/fighter grew up with a abusive father,...more
Bragg continues, giving us an in-depth look at the man who was his father-- what formed him into the oft-times hard, rough character who seemingly had little regard for those around him.
And yet, showed remarkable signs of tenderness at other times.
A fantastic journey of a man trying to figure out himself through trying to figure out his father.
Thoughtful.
And yet, showed remarkable signs of tenderness at other times.
A fantastic journey of a man trying to figure out himself through trying to figure out his father.
Thoughtful.
Dec 27, 2008
Sarah Ryburn
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
southern-lit,
memoir
took me several sittings to get into this one, but i'm glad i stuck with it. rich sense of time and place. bragg alternates between passages about his father and passages about his stepson. he goes looking for "the father he never knew" (the boy and man his father was before becoming the violent/abusive and alcoholic wreck bragg remembers from his early childhood) in the wake of becoming a father himself. nice juxtaposition. double points for structure- he moves in between "then" and "now" segme...more
Oct 12, 2008
Kelly Norton
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
bio-autobio,
southern
Who else but a southern writer can throw chuckles in the middle of such a tragic story. Who else but Rick Bragg can do this with a true and personal story. He seems to have pushed aside his need to parade his way of southern writing around like a dog & pony show and gotten to the true heart of southern storytelling: the syntax, the language, the imagery, the tragically funny lives, the accent all rolled up in to a rich, painful, full-of-heart tale. He says this is the third & final; good...more
i really liked this book - some parts were 5 stars for sure, it was a hard one to rate. I went with 4 stars because there were some parts (the history of the mills, etc) that I could not get into and made me wonder if I would be able to finish the book. After the history lessons were over though - I loved it, it made me cry and smile and wish things had went differently. Rick Bragg has some really beautiful lines and some really good sarcastic ones too, about what it is like to have a family.
The best thing about this book, is listening to the author read it. His Alabama accent and dialect are wonderful. The only other thing that was interesting were the digressions into historical/poltical/socioeconomic factors at play around the Trail of Tears; but which were too long-winded, and off-track. (Being a Yankee who lived in the South for many years, it was interesting to have a little perspective on why I was being called a Yankee, and that whole Rebel flag thing that goes on, but only...more
I really like Rick Bragg’s book, All Over But the Shoutin’, and I love reading his article on the back page of each month’s Southern Living magazine. I heard him speak at the Southern Festival of Books here in Nashville and really liked listening to him. He is an excellent writer and his style reminds me somewhat of Pat Conroy. While his stories are well written, they aren’t quite the depth of Conroy.
Bragg does manage to convey respect for his father’s hardscrabble family. I’m not sure I could...more
SUMMARY: In this final volume of the beloved American saga that began withAll Over but the Shoutin'and continued withAva's Man,Rick Bragg closes his circle of family stories with an unforgettable tale about fathers and sons inspired by his own relationship with his ten-year-old stepson. He learns, right from the start, that a man who chases a woman with a child is like a dog who chases a car and wins. He discovers that he is unsuited to fatherhood, unsuited to fathering this boy in particular, a...more
Few can write like this Pulitzer Prize winner! He is the example to use for anyone who teaches English or Writing. He can break your heart in one sentence and cause an out loud chuckle in the next.
He can tear your heart out and then make you smile at the sheer power of his marvelous mastery of words, eliciting feelings that at the hands of a lessor writer could not convey the subtle awe inspiring depth of emotion.
How I wish I could write like him. His style seems as natural as Rembrandt crafting...more
He can tear your heart out and then make you smile at the sheer power of his marvelous mastery of words, eliciting feelings that at the hands of a lessor writer could not convey the subtle awe inspiring depth of emotion.
How I wish I could write like him. His style seems as natural as Rembrandt crafting...more
1 like · like · see review
Prince of Frogtown
Karl Wallenda, the great-grandfather of daredevils, said life is the wire and the rest is waiting. My father couldn't scare himself but he could scare the rest of them.
She was happy with a gentle helpless boy, because a boy like that would need her forever.
"That one will love you forever," I told her certain of that.
Some boys just have Peter Pan in them.
But sometimes there is a sadness so deep you are afraid to get close to it, lest you fall in.
I used to daydream myself away fr...more
Karl Wallenda, the great-grandfather of daredevils, said life is the wire and the rest is waiting. My father couldn't scare himself but he could scare the rest of them.
She was happy with a gentle helpless boy, because a boy like that would need her forever.
"That one will love you forever," I told her certain of that.
Some boys just have Peter Pan in them.
But sometimes there is a sadness so deep you are afraid to get close to it, lest you fall in.
I used to daydream myself away fr...more
This was a great book, a follow-up to his previous books about his family - It's All Over But the Shouting, and Ava's Man. I enjoyed it very much, a look into what life was like for those living in the mill villages of the South. My father grew up in a mill village in Macon, Georgia - he read this book and said this was so true to what was endured by the families during those times. And Mr. Bragg doesn't just tell a story, he paints a moving picture full of detail and emotion.
Not quite as engaging as his other books but I loved it non the less. Recounts his relationship with his stepson and uncovers stories about his own father whom he never knew well.
"He asked me if I knew what plankton was."
"Little-bitty shrimp," I said.
You know stuff like that, somehow. You know it because the television remote got lost in the cushions with three boys' worth of abandoned toys, and you sat with a boy, a little one, through a thousand hours of Nature Planet. You learn to stand the s...more
"He asked me if I knew what plankton was."
"Little-bitty shrimp," I said.
You know stuff like that, somehow. You know it because the television remote got lost in the cushions with three boys' worth of abandoned toys, and you sat with a boy, a little one, through a thousand hours of Nature Planet. You learn to stand the s...more
Listened to this in audio book format read by the author with his authentic southern accenct. This is the story of his father. The other books I read of his are about his mother and his grandmother.
He grew up on the Alabama Georgia border and his mother picked cotton as a white woman in the 1950's. He describes the life of the share croppers and the mill workers and fighting men. He is a poet and can tell a story; I love Rick Bragg.
He grew up on the Alabama Georgia border and his mother picked cotton as a white woman in the 1950's. He describes the life of the share croppers and the mill workers and fighting men. He is a poet and can tell a story; I love Rick Bragg.
After reading and absolutely loving Rick Bragg's All Over But the Shoutin' and Ava's Man, I have been almost afraid to read The Prince of Frogtown for fear that it wouldn't stand up to the other two. Finally decided to jump in and found that it was good, but not AS good. For me, this one just didn't have the emotion the other two evoked. Having said that, it was still a fantastic book. In All Over but the Shoutin', the author writes about his father, a man who left his family over and over again...more
This is Bragg's third and last book about his family. When Bragg becomes the stepfather of a 10-year-old boy, he is forced to reflect on his relationship to his own father, a chronic alcoholic who left his family to suffer poverty.
In Bragg's first book, he wrote off his dad as a complete loser. Now, he interviews family and friends to gain a more complete picture of a flawed but still loving man. Bragg captures the good and the bad, the resiliency and weakness, of not only his father, but himsel...more
In Bragg's first book, he wrote off his dad as a complete loser. Now, he interviews family and friends to gain a more complete picture of a flawed but still loving man. Bragg captures the good and the bad, the resiliency and weakness, of not only his father, but himsel...more
3.5 stars
I'm not exactly sure why Rick Bragg felt the need to provide a third installment of his (and his family's) impoverished life in Alabama (given All Over But the Shoutin' and Ava's Man are nearly perfect, and all-encompassing) but evidently he felt like his father's side of the family got short shrift in those two books, hence The Prince of Frogtown. After reading those first two books, it's no secret Mr. Bragg hated his father. While it's not exactly revelatory (much of this can be found...more
I'm not exactly sure why Rick Bragg felt the need to provide a third installment of his (and his family's) impoverished life in Alabama (given All Over But the Shoutin' and Ava's Man are nearly perfect, and all-encompassing) but evidently he felt like his father's side of the family got short shrift in those two books, hence The Prince of Frogtown. After reading those first two books, it's no secret Mr. Bragg hated his father. While it's not exactly revelatory (much of this can be found...more
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| Southern writers | 2 | 18 | Feb 11, 2012 10:40am |
Rick Bragg is the Pulitzer Prize winning writer of best-selling and critically acclaimed books on the people of the foothills of the Appalachians, All Over but the Shoutin, Ava's Man, and The Prince of Frogtown.
Bragg, a native of Calhoun County, Alabama, calls these books the proudest examples of his writing life, what historians and critics have described as heart-breaking anthems of people usual...more
More about Rick Bragg...
Bragg, a native of Calhoun County, Alabama, calls these books the proudest examples of his writing life, what historians and critics have described as heart-breaking anthems of people usual...more
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“Don’t worry about what people think, because once it’s all over the people who love you will make you what they want you to be, and the people who don’t love you will, too.”
—
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