Good Old Boy: A Delta Boyhood

by Willie Morris

The author's boyhood escapades in his hometown of Yazoo City, Mississippi.

Genres: Fiction, Southern, Classics

143 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

William Weaks "Willie" Morris (November 29, 1934 — August 2, 1999), was an American writer and editor born in Jackson, Mississippi, though his family later moved to Yazoo City, Mississippi, which he immortalized in his works of prose. Morris' trademark was his lyrical prose style and reflections on the American South, particularly the Mississippi Delta. In 1967 he became the youngest editor of Harper's Magazine. He wrote several works of fiction and non-fiction, including his seminal book North Toward Home, as well as My Dog Skip.

Reviews

[J Godwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

My dad gave this book to my oldest brother sometime in the 1970's and I read it when he was done. Both of my folks grew up in or around Yazoo City, Mississippi, the setting of this book, so it had special meaning to us. I saw it in a used bookshop a few years ago and snatched it up quick, although most people have neither heard of it nor would want to grab it out of my basket as a lost classic.

However, while Willie Morris is most famous for "My Dog Skip", "Good Old Boy" really catches your heartstrings and stirs your childhood imagination. You feel like nothing much changed in the south since Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer saved Muff Potter and almost died in the caves.

This book makes Baby Boomers like me (I'm at the tail end) feel reminiscent of our childhood and the freedom we had to explore, pretend, capture squirmy smelly things, trespass and all other kinds of good clean fun. It's a wonderful trip to the past, whether you lived that kind of childhood or not.

[Tiffany · Rating 5 out of 5]

This really is about Good Old Boy, I promise.

My heart broke for Charlie, on Fear the Walking Dead, when she said she could not find a book about Galveston. She’d never been and would likely never go (thanks Zombie Apocalypse) but she wanted to be able to imagine it. (Have any books ever been set in Galveston?)

What are books if not a view into a place entirely unknown or a remembrance of a place quite familiar? The Witching Hour or True Blood series for New Orleans with a dash of Tennessee Williams for good measure. William Faulkner or Eudora Welty for Mississippi. I’d not pursued MS writers farther than John Grisham when I first lived here and only learned to fully appreciate place as character after I’d left.

The active stillness of a Mississippi afternoon allowing young boys to create adventures and a grown woman to get out of her head long enough to put pen to paper (if only for long enough to write a decent enough book review).

So what a joy it was to read Good Old Boy by MS native Willie Morris. His account of small town Mississippi life took me easily back to my own experiences. I was not raised in a small MS town but one did lay down roots in my heart that call me back often. The tales may seem farfetched in places, to the jaded eye, but from the perspective of a boy, not so much. And certainly not enough to dissuade me from planning a jaunt up to Yazoo City (only 15 minutes from where I’m currently visiting).

Morris compels the reader to the muddy banks of the Yazoo river that claimed a Yankee gunboat during the Civil War. To see the Clark mansion if it ever did exist. To look upon the railroad tracks where the famed Casey Jones made his last run. And to find the graves of John Adam’s great-nephews, the witch of Yazoo and to pay tribute to Willie Morris himself at the Glenwood Cemetery. Morris embodied and gave life to a place.

If you enjoyed Stand By Me or Something Wicked This Way Comes (Morris wrote My Dog Skip) you’ll love this book.

"Never mind, adventure lies deep in the heart of any young person who wishes it, just waiting there to be summoned, depending on how much you want it."

[Steven Meyers · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Good Old Boy’ is a guy book about being a rural kid. The late Mr. Morris even states during the story, “With the exception of our girl friend, Rivers Applewhite, we did not like girls as much as we liked dogs, cats, bugs, rabbits, turtles, and fish.” The author’s faux memoir is more about reminiscing on how it felt to be a kid in rural Mississippi during the 1940s. I have no clue if he mixed true people with fictional characters but he and his faithful dog Skip were actual beings. It isn’t really important. Mr. Morris successfully conveys the spirit of rural boyhood when societal rules were quite different than today.

Mr. Morris was writing about living in the Deep South and the book was published in 1971. ‘Good Old Boy’ does use a few inappropriate labels that are now considered verboten but were acceptable well up to and including the nineteen-seventies. Nineteen-forties’ Mississippi was a place of Confederate statues and various Civil War memorabilia plastered all over the place; corporal punishment and praying in public schools; nicknames; and some fearsome teachers. Pranks and mischief are common ingredients in the book. The boys and one girl go in search of an old neglected Civil War graveyard and have an implausible adventure in an abandoned plantation mansion. It touches upon afternoon matinees, baseball, fishing, and hunting squirrels. Radio ruled. They’re laissez-faire attitude about encountering rattlesnakes and copperheads had this sixty-one-year-old Mainer in awe. There are no poisonous snakes here in the Pine Tree State. Mr. Morris even touches upon Jim Crow relations between whites and blacks. ‘Good Old Boy’ is a fast pleasant summer read and a nice reminder that our childhood stays with us for the remainder of our lives.

[Dre J · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came to learn of Willie Morris through working at the library named by him in Jackson. I knew he was a great writer from Mississippi and this was one of the first I have read by him. I actually really enjoyed it. It speaks of small town in MS that I have been to a couple of times-Yazoo city and his life growing up there. It is one of those times as a young boy and his friends doing mischief and living in that town. He tells stories about the witch that burned Yazoo city. There was a story about how he and his friends used a set of twins to trick some boys in a race. There is the eve so trusted dog Skip (from his most popular work-my dog skip). There is that one kid who always seems to be grown man like (almost as if he raises himself). Even the way other young blacks are pictured as friends of the boys is a way better representation than I would have expected in a small MS town (paraphrasing: there is a line about negro boys that says our language is almost the same the way we pronounce things). I think the book is a great representation of what many small towns may have looked like in that time. Good read!

[Virginia Boyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for family summer reading contest. Was a nostalgic compilation of stories that I didn’t think I would enjoy as much as I did!

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Willie Morris, who spent his childhood in Yazoo City, Mississippi, became the youngest editor of Harper's magazine in 1967. He published several books about his childhood in the South (including "My Dog Skip") as well as his years in New York ("New York Days") where he befriended "William Styron, David Halberstam, Woody Allen, Bobby Kennedy, Truman Capote, Shirley MacLaine, George Plimpton, Leonard Bernstein, and the other leading figures of the time."

In Good Old Boy, Morris writes about his boyhood in MS with nostalgia and affection. The stories are simple, and I found that many people read them in school, as youth. Very straight-forward tales about a simpler time, probably most enjoyed by people familiar with the area.

[Drew Norwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Willie Morris really mastered tone and mood. Wistful, nostalgic, poignant, comic. His fondness and reverence for the place where he grew up bleeds through. And he was a good storyteller. All in all, it makes for an easy, enjoyable read that somehow manages to give you the feeling of having been there.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read it in third grade or so and loved it. I imagine I'd still like it - though I don't particularly know that it'd hold up to the other autobiography of his I read, North Towards Home, I still recall it as vastly entertaining and funny.

[Valerie Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember reading this book in high school and not being able to put it down. It was and is one of my favorite books.

[Brian Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ch. 8 & 9 alone about the Clark Mansion make it 5 stars! This is Sandlot and Ron Carlson's "The Speed of Light" rolled into one. A sparse, fun read with a lot of heart.

[Heather Welch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it - made me laugh out loud and long for my Mississippi childhood again.

[Janice Stout · Rating 5 out of 5]

If there were 100 stars would give them to this sentimental retrospective story of a boy’s childhood. I actually started reading this book aloud, in a slow soft southern accent and ended up consuming the entire book that way.
It’s a short book but take your time and enjoy every word. Why this hasn’t become a movie ala Stand by Me is beyond me.

[Kitty · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a good book, as somebody from Mississippi it tells us a lot about it, I wouldn’t normally read this kinda book but for school we had to, I rate it 3 stars just because it’s not my favourite book but it was definitely interesting. Willie Morris describes everything so well and it really describes what Mississippi or the south is like.

[Makenzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5) oh goodness. i know everyone loves this book. and i did really enjoy it. it was cozy and felt like a nice warm hug. it reminds me of my grandparents stories of childhood and it’s super fun. i just had to read it for school so i think the overanalyzing and being forced to read it messed up the experience for me a bit. very unique structure and a nice change of pace.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful memoir of growing up in the south in the 1940s-50s.
Some parts of it you have to read with a grain of salt, ie tall tales you might hear around a campfire, especially the parts about his friend Spit McGee. Imagine a mid 20th century version of Huckleberry Finn.

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good stories of an 11 year old. Great fast read for fans of Willie Morris.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it when I read it years ago. Read it to my children later in life too.

[Nayi Lorick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written quick read, set in Mississippi, this book takes you to a nostalgic venture...

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun coming of age story in a southern town. A fun, easy read perfect for teens or any age. Wholesome fun in a simpler time.

[John Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread this book for the first time since I was in 5th grade and it’s still just as good

[nico · Rating 1 out of 5]

I HATE THIS SOOOOO FUCKING MUCH. IDCCCC IF IT WAS SET IN THE 1950s THE SLURS PMO SO BAD

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of a meandering childhood memoir, this made my heart ache for the years we loved in a smaller town in Georgia. There is a certain nature magic in the Deep South, and that combined with the magic of a childhood that could be spent wandering, wondering, and imagining, is a recipe for a sweet, nostalgic trip in this book full of boy shenanigans.

[Candace Jefcoat · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's one of the few books I actually liked in junior high.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reckon there may be a thousand books one could write about growing up a boy in Mississippi. I'm glad Willie wrote this one.

[Sarah Ryburn · Rating 4 out of 5]

read so many years ago in junior high school, but, oh, how i remember i wanted to be rivers applewhite...

[A.K. Benninghofen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fourth read. Never gets old.

[Kim Levi]

with Erica - 7th grade

[Christina Dent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, hardly believable but it's true. Great storytelling, great book

[Reanna Montgomery · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this because it is my husband’s favorite book. He grew up in Greenwood, MS. Very cute story, especially if you grew up in the Mississippi Delta or any part of the Deep South.

[Erin Sterling · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book about the small MS town where I grew up.