Conversations with Larry Brown

by Jay Watson (Editor), Larry Brown

In a fifteen-year period beginning in 1988, Mississippi native Larry Brown (1951-2004) published two collections of short stories, five novels, a memoir, and two collections of essays. Two of his novels, Joe and Father and Son , won the Southern Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.

Brown wrote with compassion, humor, and unflinching honesty about the struggles of rural and small-town working-class southerners. Twenty-nine years old when his writing career began, Brown's plainspoken style, sharp eye for detail, and keen ear for dialogue quickly established him as one of the most respected and compelling new voices in contemporary southern literature.

Conversations with Larry Brown brings together interviews Brown gave between 1988 and 2004. The collection includes interview material from a full-length film documentary about Brown's life and work as well as two previously unpublished pieces. Across these conversations, Brown offers insights into all of his books and several of his short stories.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 30, 2007

Reviews

[Dr. Jon Pirtle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brown as interviewee is nearly as perfect as Brown's fiction. He does not evade or obfuscate. He answers questions directly, simply, and honestly. He addresses his own shortcomings. He admits his early weaknesses. He tells of his influences. He offers praise to other masters of the form. He tells of his struggles and disappointments and endurance. After reading this, I wanted to reread his whole oeuvre.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of interviews was compiled after Larry Brown's untimely death, when he was only in his early 50's. Though Brown has left us with several books, Jay Watson wanted to honor the man behind the words by putting together some insightful interviews. The wonderful thing to read in these interviews is Brown's work ethic when it comes to writing. By his own estimates, when he was 29, Larry Brown decided that he wanted to become a writer and create books.

Rather than simply sit in classes and workshops and discuss writing, Brown, quite simply, wrote. By his estimates, he wrote close to 100 short stories and 5 novels before he wrote anything worth publishing (or, more accurately, before he could get objective enough about his own work to see that he was finally writing fiction that was worth the attention of others).

If you are looking for a collection of philosophy on writing, you aren't going to find it here like you might in Bledsoe's Getting Naked With Harry Crews, but that's because of how Larry Brown was as a writer--he saw the craft of being a writer as exactly that, a craft, and he worked at it regularly and didn't muse upon it for the benefit of wide-eyed newbies and hopefuls (as well as the benefit of his savings account). Brown wrote, and he took that, quite simply, as his livelihood, just the way he took being a fireman and a forklift operator in a stove factory as his livelihood. This book is mostly inspirational in reading about someone with a sound work ethic rather than a postulator on the art of writing.

Not that Brown is short of any gems. A true student of his craft, Brown is able to quote masters like Flannery O'Connor, but is also able to talk about the essence of tragedy and how his writing works out towards tragedy despite his best efforts, for his grandest search is to look for the truth of humans and his characters. A wonderful piece here is an excerpt from the documentary The Rough South of Larry Brown, an interview with Larry Brown and his wife. Here, we get to see another side of the soft-spoken Brown.

This is deifnitely a must-read for any aspiring writer. It may prove a little depressing to see how much Brown had to work before he could write publishable work, but a touch of reality just the same. Larry Brown will be missed.

[Tom Mueller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a huge Larry Brown fan. For other fans, I would strongly recommend "Conversations", but not until after you get a feel for who Brown is, through reading some of his work. This will allow a better perception of what Brown - as seen through his interviews - is about. Anyone who enjoys good old fashioned story telling ala Hemingway or Faulkner, will likely enjoy Brown. Brown undertook teaching himself the 'craft' of writing, and learned well. He took to heart what he read of others before him (he calls them his heroes); [paraphrasing:] "write of what you know".
This work is a compilation of most major - and some minor - interviews with Brown, done over much of his career. I was rewarded with a look at his viewpoints, confirming that he was indeed writing of what he knew best. Anyone wanting to explore his world would be doing themselves a favor by reading his work - at least his novels - in chronological order. You'll be in for a real treat.

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

GREAT BIOGRAPHY TO TOUCH BASE WITH THE COMPLICATED LIFE OF LARRY BROWN: THE SELF MADE WRITER AND MY RELATIVE THAT PROVED :

DREAMS DO COME COME TRUE WITH HARD WORK, LOVE, PRAYER, DILIGENCE AND TRUE FAITH ACCEPTING NO FAIURE!!!!

[Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book contains a variety of interviews with author Larry Brown, spanning his writing career from the late 1980s to shortly before his death in 2004. If you're unfamiliar with his catalog of fiction and nonfiction, i would recommend that everyone do so.

[Gary Sites · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish I had read this book long ago, but didn't know it existed until two weeks ago. If you're a writer, you must read this book.

[Cory Fosco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contains a wide variety of interviews with Brown throughout his writing career. Great way to learn about how someone decides to become a writer and the process he goes through to get noticed.

[Daniel Hester · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suppose with any "Conversations With..." book you expect a little repetition from interview to interview; with this volume even more so. Still a great read for fans of Larry Brown