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The Prince of Frogtown

Rick Bragg

4.08 · Rating details · 2,515 ratings · 312 reviews

The final volume of Rick Bragg's bestselling and beloved American saga documents a mesmerizing journey back in time to the lush Alabama landscape of Rick's youth, to Jacksonville's one-hundred-year-old mill and to Rick's father, the troubled, charismatic hustler coming of age in its shadow.

Inspired by Rick Bragg's love for his stepson, The Prince of Frogtown also chronicle ...more

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Hardcover, 272 pages

Published May 6th 2008 by Knopf (first published 2008)

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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

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Oct 24, 2018 Cheri rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018, alabama, autobiography-memoir, non-fiction, american-southern

”Paradise was never heaven-high when I was a boy but waist-deep, an oasis of cutoff blue jeans and raggedy Converse sneakers, sweating bottles of Nehi Grape and Orange Crush, and this stream.”

”I saw my first water moccasin here, and my first real girl, and being a child of the foot washers I have sometimes wondered if this was my Eden, and my serpent. If it was, I didn’t hold out any longer than that first poor fool did. It took something as powerful as that, as girls, to tug me away from thi ...more

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May 25, 2008 Terri rated it it was amazing

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

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Feb 02, 2010 Hannah rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2010-reads, non-fiction, favorites

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

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May 23, 2008 Melissa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: poverty-and-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

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May 21, 2008 Debra rated it it was amazing

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

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Aug 30, 2008 Alex Bledsoe rated it liked it

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

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May 23, 2014 Chrissie rated it really liked it

Shelves: audible, bio, relationships, usa, 2014-read, southern

Again, here is a book that you must stick with; it improves. By the end I really liked it - a lot! Yup, this one is as good as the author's Ava's Man, about his maternal grandfather and grandmother.

The book is set in Jacksonville, Alabama, in primarily the 1950s and 1960s. Don't make the hasty assumption that this book concerns racial questions. No, it is about poor whites. You know the term Hillbillies and what that brings to mind. The author is writing about his relationship with his father a Again, here is a book that you must stick with; it improves. By the end I really liked it - a lot! Yup, this one is as good as the author's Ava's Man, about his maternal grandfather and grandmother.

The book is set in Jacksonville, Alabama, in primarily the 1950s and 1960s. Don't make the hasty assumption that this book concerns racial questions. No, it is about poor whites. You know the term Hillbillies and what that brings to mind. The author is writing about his relationship with his father and his 10 year-old stepson. To know how he should be to be a father he first had to understand his relationship with his own father, and this was very troubled. This new son who came to his doorstep, along with the woman he wanted to marry, was as far from any boy he ever had known. How do you relate to what is completely foreign? If anything he was just that kind of boy that had been a childhood enemy. To become a father, a good father, he first had to understand himself, his own boyhood and his father. Did he succeed?

Think poor white trash. This is very bluntly put, but you will get my meaning. Think whiskey and fighting, rudimentary education and no jobs, in the South, out in the boondocks, a small cotton mill town. THAT employment was one of being torn to shreds in dangerous machines, the pay so small you can wonder if it is pay. So how do you survive? Religion? Booze? Women? And how difficult is it to change and leave and escape a bad family milieu. Can you change everything? Not everything. To be clear, this is not a book about how one can leave and escape. It is a book about understanding that life he came from, and we readers learn with him. Do we really know what such a life is really like? Here is a window to look into.

I was thinking this - what makes some people change, escape, while others remain? (I have read that alcohol ism is perhaps inherited; it comes with our genes.) You know whiskey was on the table like a salt shaker sits there on a table. But why is it that one person can break the bad cycle of generations of drinkers and fighters and womanizers, and another cannot? What makes one person succumb and another revolt and leave? We also see Rick's two other brothers and how they react, but primarily we see his father and it is shocking. He drank, he always drank and he was mean when he drank and at the end that is all he did. You cannot but ask yourself why; why is it like this and how can this change and well, there is a lot to think about?! Rick Bragg looks honestly at his life, at his father's and his mother's and their mothers and fathers. He does this with honesty, explaining how each thing happened as it did. This is not an easy read, but it is worth reading - to understand the nifty-gritty facts of another's life. For me it was a life I knew little of.

What made it very hard in the beginning was that I didn't know who was who. By the end I understood. Pronouns are used and you can't quite be sure who that person is. You hear: “the woman”, “the boy” and “he” and I”! Who, who is I? This drove me crazy. There are alternating chapters, first one about his father's life and then a chapter about time spent with his stepson. It wasn't the change in time perspective but the unclear use of pronouns that threw me. You also hear the views of others, who knew the relatives, and there are lots of relatives, and this was confusing at times. You hear about other people too, because no man is an island. Police Chief Ross, for example. To understand Rick's father you also have to understand Ross and others too, friends and foes. Who we become is just such a blend of those around us along with our own strengths and weaknesses!

Yes, this is a very good book. I admire the author for so honestly revealing who he is and why he is who he is. The author reads his own writing in the audiobook; it feels that he is speaking from the heart. The dialect is Southern and I had difficult at times deciphering the words, but it shouldn't be read any other way.

Think if for once I could write a short review!
...more

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Jul 12, 2008 Michelle rated it it was ok

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

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Aug 01, 2008 Susan rated it it was amazing

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

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Dec 13, 2008 Pat rated it really liked it

"He had been doing time in the county lockup when he got out the last time, sick and thin. But she was at peace, and it seemed so was he. There was no catalyst we knew of, no evangelism. It was more like he just got tired and decided he wanted to live quiet the rest of his days. She prayed he was truly over that life of self-destruction that took my father, but it didn't matter if it was permanent. Every day was a gift. Then an old charge, a dusty charge, resurfaced in the courts, and sent him "He had been doing time in the county lockup when he got out the last time, sick and thin. But she was at peace, and it seemed so was he. There was no catalyst we knew of, no evangelism. It was more like he just got tired and decided he wanted to live quiet the rest of his days. She prayed he was truly over that life of self-destruction that took my father, but it didn't matter if it was permanent. Every day was a gift. Then an old charge, a dusty charge, resurfaced in the courts, and sent him off again. My mother was more stunned than brokenhearted, "'cause he done so good," and it seemed like she just shrank in her clothes. He disappeared into the state system, to Atmore, and I thought it would kill her. Everyone says that about mothers and sons, but sons do kill their mothers that way."

In this book that finishes the telling of his childhood growing up in a mill town in Alabama; Rick Bragg comes full circle. In this book he puts to rest (we hope) the ghost of his father. Charlie Bragg; married a beautiful woman, had three sons and abandoned them to drink. In going back and trying to understand his father; Bragg is also trying become a husband and father. This book will make you laugh and make you cry. I could smell the chicken frying, hear the women shouting in the church and see the stars in the foothills of Alabama. Rick Bragg can make all your senses come to life in his books; and break your heart.

"Old women call it loafering, and I've always loved that word. I guess it is just how we say the word "loafing," but the way we say it makes you think of loafers, of wearing out your shoe leather for no good purpose. Old women like to sniff and use it as a condemnation. "He ain't here. He's off loafering." It means you are shirking work and responsibility. To the men who loafer, it means they are free, free to waste time, to count mailboxes, and wave at other old men who, as the rear bumper vanishes in the distance, wish they were loafering, too. I plan to loafer someday. At least I hope to." ...more

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Nov 06, 2008 Warren rated it it was amazing

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

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Jun 27, 2008 Kbwilliams rated it liked it

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

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Apr 14, 2008 Linda rated it really liked it

Shelves: memoir

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!

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Jan 16, 2008 Dianne rated it really liked it

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.

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Dec 09, 2017 Jim Richardson rated it it was amazing

I suppose Rick Bragg can be a little melodramatic but I really like listening to his narration and I can't help finding it interesting to hear about his family's struggles through poverty , alcoholism and violence. I enjoyed this final chapter of his story.

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Aug 14, 2011 Linda Lipko rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, acquired-in-2016, i-own

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 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 a chiaroscuro masterpiece, never using a white canvas, always gray or brown in backdrop, never just bright, never only dark, and the result is a portrait rich in depth and beauty.

As Bragg takes pen to paper there is a ray of hope amid the chaotic backdrop of an abusive, weak, self destructive, alcoholic father contrasted to a strong, able, loving steady mother.

Like Rembrandt's painting Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, amidst the pounding waves, there is life threatening turmoil and also calming force on board the ship, tempest torn praying for a safe passage.

In his first novels, All Over But the Shoutin' and Ava's Man Bragg took us on the rough journey of his childhood with an alcoholic father who harmed. Forgiveness of a man who caused so very much pain is difficult and it is only in the cathartic courage of Bragg to write about the angst that the reader understands the struggle of father and son.

In The Prince of Frogtown, Bragg is now a step father to a ten year old son. He inherits a small boy so unlike him and the childhood hardships he endured. This is a pampered younger child who never knew the flash of a father's anger fueled by white lightening bootlegged whiskey.

As Bragg struggles with the definition of fatherhood, he like many people from dysfunctional families know only what NOT to do and wrestle with what to do. When a parent of poverty has influence on a child of middle class softness, does the parent make the child buckle up and be a man, or does he accept the distinct dichotomy?

Bragg's raw emotion is written with boxing gloves lined with soft rabbit fur.

This is writing at its best, and like Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird it is southern gothic in the powerful form of a work loaded in distinctive phrases and individual components that complete a unifying canvas of incredible power.

FIVE STARS.
...more

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Sep 04, 2012 Paula rated it liked it

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

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Jan 31, 2012 Kevin Farrell rated it it was amazing

Well, I did it again. I started reading a series with the latest book. Now, to work my way backwards to the beginning. Doh!

I love well written books about boys growing up. I guess this started with Mark Twain for me and I just keep looking for those great stories about boys and the stuff that they do. This book explores the boys growing into men in the author's family. Some of the men didn't handle the adult part very well and that caused a lifetime of trouble for several people in a tiny mounta ...more

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Aug 27, 2008 Judy rated it liked it

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

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Jul 15, 2008 Felicia rated it it was amazing

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

...more

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Jul 24, 2008 Corny rated it really liked it

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

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Jun 18, 2013 Leslie rated it really liked it

I thought this was a pretty darn good book. It seemed appropriate that I picked it up over Father's Day weekend. It spoke to me, perhaps because my roots are somewhat similar to Bragg's, though not as southern and not so rough, thank God. He gave a touching portrayal of a doomed man and of family relationships -- how you can love someone, hate him, pity him and admire him all at once. The intersticed passages with his step son were touching and comical, a welcome relief from the horror of his fa ...more

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Sep 14, 2008 Chad rated it really liked it

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

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May 22, 2010 Pam rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Caroline Musselwhile

This is Rick Bragg's third novel about his family. This highlights his exploration of his father as a child and young adult, his attempt to understand a man who became an abusive alcoholic father. Rick writes the story of his father interspersed with the episodes of his new relationship with his stepson, a boy who has a childhood unlike Ricky's lowclass country upbringing.

This is another must read book. Rick Bragg will surely go down as one of America's great southern writers. he captures the ru ...more

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Sep 26, 2012 Amy Kannel rated it really liked it

Shelves: library-kindle, library-audio, southern, memoir

I know you probably get tired of my saying how Rick Bragg is the most brilliant, gifted writer. But I can't help it--it is the honest truth.

I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as All Over But the Shoutin' or Ava's Man...but the more it went on, the better I liked it. I found his relationship to/treatment of "The Boy" fairly troubling, but that improved as the book continued on. All in all it was an honest, courageous book, and Bragg can make people come to life on the page like none other. Hi ...more

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Jul 05, 2008 Sarah Ryburn rated it really liked it

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

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Apr 29, 2008 Kelly Norton rated it it was amazing

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

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Dec 21, 2014 Nannette Serra rated it it was ok

I loved "All Over But The Shoutin"" and "Ava's Man" but I picked up "The Prince of Frogtown" again yesterday and tried to read more. I realized I am actually bored with this book and there is no point in trying to force myself to read it just so I can say I read another or Rick Bragg's books. I will accept the fact that all books are not for all people. At another time in my life, I might enjoy the book and come back to read it. Right now I am going to give up on it.

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Jul 04, 2008 Grace rated it it was amazing

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.

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Sep 25, 2008 jenna Hudrlik rated it really liked it

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.

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About Rick Bragg

Rick Bragg

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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