Come Quittin' Time

by Wilt Browning

From child laborer to family matriarch, a mother's lifetime spent in Southern cotton mills.

Genres: Nonfiction

184 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2007

Reviews

[Kristin Lambert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm researching a novel set around the cotton mills of South Carolina and Alabama, so I read this book for a first-person insight. This is mostly the story of the author's mother, who began working at the mills at a young age. The author relays her stories and also tells his own tales of growing up in a mill town as a child of two mill worker parents.

I found most of these stories fascinating, especially considering my great-grandmother and her parents were mill people, too. I never got the chance to ask them what it was like, so it's like I got a little glimpse into their world with this book.

The book has some repetitiveness that could've been edited out, and it definitely veers into sentimental territory quite a bit, but I didn't mind. For the most part, it was well written and effectively captured a time and place. And it made me cry at the end, and that's usually a plus for me. :)