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Clear Springs: A Family Story
People love and remember the novels of Bobbie Ann Mason because they ring so true. This dazzling memoir saga of three generations, their aspirations, their conflicts, and the ties that bound them to one another. Spanning decades, " Clear Springs" gracefully weaves together the stories of Mason's grandparents, parents, and her won generation. The narrative moves f...more
Paperback, 336 pages
Published
April 26th 2000
by Harper Perennial
(first published 1999)
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A wonderful book about Western Kentucky farm life in the 1940s and the girl who couldn't wait to grow up and move away, only to return later in her life. In addition to details about the author's life, we are also treated to the same details about her parents, grandparents and other ancestors who settled in the area in the 1800s.
After reading this book, I felt I had actually traveled down toward the Mayfield, Kentucky, farm and met that interesting family.
After reading this book, I felt I had actually traveled down toward the Mayfield, Kentucky, farm and met that interesting family.
Mason is from Kentucky and writes about her community and family history in Clear Springs, KY which I think is wonderful and I imagine most interesting to her kith and kin rather than to the American public at large. How this book received a New York Times Notable book distinction escapes me. It seems to speak to a smaller audience. On a positive note, however, this book could serve as inspiration for the rest of us to ask the questions of our aunts, uncles, and parents and then sit down and ...more
When I read this book I thought that Mason had somehow tapped into my life and told my own story. I could relate to her life in the country, the people and things that surrounded her and the desire for something more. All my story too! She writes so well, even in this memoir form.
This memoir follows the life of Bobbie Mason as she grows up in Kentucky in the 1940's. It is an interesting look at life on a farm and how people can live off the farm and make everything they need to get by. It is not an easy life.
A little too folksy for my tastes. A little bit dull in some places as well, but captures a lost way of life very effectively.
I enjoy reading this book even I was not familar with who Bobbie Ann Mason is. Nice read.
Sara
marked it as to-read
2000 finalist; experiences of three generations growing up in western ky
For those whose families hailed from Graves County, Kentucky.
I loved this book. Western Kentucky isn't exactly an area that attracts a lot of attention from contemporary writers, but Bobby Ann Mason captures the voices and attitudes of this area perfectly. I first read it just a few years after I left Southern Indiana for the city (Philadelphia) and was feeling homesick for a certain kind of good-hearted hillbilly. The book is mostly about her grandmother, a stubborn and resourceful woman who held on through the Depression only to find herself marooned in...more
Although fulfilling my 8th grade non-fiction reading, this book did not fulfill my expectations of a good story; probably due to the difference in the values of the author and me. Telling the story of a woman's life, this book goes through the stages of her life, but much to my dissapointment, skimmed through her teenage years, focusing mainly on her leaving her farm life and moving into the city to become someone important- something I feel quite the opposite about.
This is a really lovely, evocative memoir, a portrait of the kind of place and people who are often overlooked. That the place she is from is also the place I am from...well, admittedly, that might have something to do with how much this book resonates for me. But I think it should also have high appeal for those who enjoy Mason's fiction, or Southern fiction in general.
This a memoir. I liked it enough to add 2 of her other books to my to read list.
I spent much of my early childhood in a four-generation household in a small Kentucky farming community similar to this one depicted by Bobbbie Mason....Many of her memories took me back to that time period. I found her stories all to be very authentic.
I used to live in Bobbie Ann Mason's hometown, so this book and memoir really resonated with me. Many of the stories she told about her family remind me of mine even though the author and I are of different generations.
Nothing too special, just a memoir about growing up in the South and fighting to have your own life while still being tied to "home and family". Not the best thing I've ever read, but not the worst either.
Please read this book. She is a fellow Kentuckian who was raised about 20 miles from my home. Clear Springs pays tribute to a wonderful way of life.
I've read everything that Mason has written (she was the topic of my dissertation), and her autobiography is her clearest voice.
Katherine Myers
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Jennifer Lorene Sun
marked it as pulitzer-prize-auto-biography
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Bobbie Ann Mason has won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the American Book Award, and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her books include In Country and Feather Crowns. She lives in Kentucky.
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