Published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York
$22.00There’s just something about growing up in the South that makes one want to talk about it. Or, in Rick Bragg’s case, write about it.
Bragg’s latest book is about the search for the father he never really knew. In “The Prince of Frogtown,” Bragg takes the reader on a ride that at times wants to make you cry and at times will have you laughing.
Bragg proved he was a great story-teller in his previous books, “All Over But the Shoutin’” and “Ava’s Man.” In those books, we met his mother and his mother’s father. Now we get to meet his father – a man who grew up in the section of Jacksonville called Frogtown.
The story is told from the recollections of Bragg, members of his family and many of his father’s friends and family.
Bragg’s search into his father’s short and tragic life is intertwined with his own relationship with his stepson. Each chapter is divided into a section about his father and a section about his stepson, whom he calls, “the boy.”
Bragg’s walk through his father’s life leads us through a Jacksonville that was far less complicated than the one we live in today. The cotton mill was a blessing and a curse. It gave the people of the town a living while eating up their lives one day at a time. It also gives him great pleasure to show “the boy” the old mill and creek on a visit back home.
Charles Bragg was a proud man, a man who liked to “look good” for the ladies. He met and fell in love with Bragg’s mother and through their rough-and-tumble relationship, they manage to have three children – all boys.
You get the impression that Charles wanted to do right, to be faithful to his wife, to raise a family. But somehow he always managed to self-destruct just when it looked like he was turning his life around.
He managed to get out of Frogtown – not once, but twice. Both times he returned – the final time to live out his days as an alcoholic on welfare.
As you read the book, you know that Bragg is going to find out things about his father that he will hate. But, surprisingly, he finds out things that bring him closer together with his father. Things that make him question his own relationship with “the boy.”
Charles Bragg is a man you will love and hate. He is a man who brings home a pet dog for his son, only to take him away a few days later to place him in a dogfight. When he brings him back, the dog is wounded and dying. That story probably best defines Charles Bragg and his relationship with his family. Loving at times, hateful at times.
I can relate to Bragg and his cast of characters. Although I didn’t grow up in Jacksonville’s “mill village,” I did grow up on the outskirts of a mill village in Gadsden. Many of the people and circumstances in Bragg’s book could easily drop into my recollections of growing up.
Although I didn’t technically live in the mill village, most of the kids I grew up with did. My mother’s side of the family were “lintheads.” Daddy’s people came out of the steel mill.
I wish I could write the way Bragg does. He makes writers green with envy, especially those from the South. Bragg weaves his story of love and hate, victory and defeat, pride and disgrace with amazing ability.
He makes you want to keep reading, to keep turning the pages to see what will happen next, even though you know you will be in tears when you finish.
With this book, Bragg can truly join the long list of Southern writers who have influenced their generation.
Editor’s note: Rick Bragg is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. He got his start with the Jacksonville State University student newspaper, The Chanticleer, and with The Jacksonville News.
