Ecology of a Cracker Childhood (World As Home, The)

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 224 pages
• Published by: Milkweed Editions July 28, 2000
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1571312471
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1571312471
• Book Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Weighs: 13.8 ounces

Reader Reviews
Oooooooo-eeee. I cannot tell you the number of times you will pause while reading this extraordinarily sensitive and profoundly moving life-story. Some of your pauses will feature your face wreathed in smiles, for Janisse Ray's "Ecology of a Cracker Childhood" is a celebration of both place and family, and her finely-delineated family sketches and gloriously-rendered anecdotes and teeming with respect and affection for her family. Other pauses will find you, I am sure, hands on knees, weeping. For there is great pain in this book as well...the pain of a place that is gradually disappearing, the pain of understanding your place in that place, the pain of coming to grips with the flaws of your heritage. One reviewer, Wes Jackson, said, "Janisse Ray is a role model for countless future rural writers to come." I believe that he understates Ms. Ray's importance. To tell the truth, she is a role model, plain and simple. It is my hope that this stirring memoir will vault her into our nation's consciousness and conscience. This daughter of a Cracker junkyard owner has a significant message to tell us, and her language is simply remarkable. Her verbal imagery is astounding; her precise descriptions -- of humans, flora and fauna -- are models of elegance. I am willing to bet that there are more than a few readers who could only imagine the possible union of Ms. Ray and Rick Bragg ("All Over but the Shoutin'"). These two white Southerners have much to teach us about family, conscience, commitments and reverence of place. "Ecology of a Cracker Childhood" will emerge as one of our century's most important works. Be glad to have read it when it first came out. Comment | | (Report this)