Meander Belt: Family, Loss, and Coming of Age in the Working-Class South

American Lives

by M. Randal O'Wain

In  Meander Belt M. Randal O’Wain offers a reflection on how a working-class boy from Memphis, Tennessee, came to fall in love with language, reading, writing, and the larger world outside of the American South. This memoir examines what it means for the son of a carpenter to value mental rather than physical labor and what this does to his relationship with his family, whose livelihood and sensibility are decidedly blue collar. Straining the father-son bond further, O’Wain leaves home to find a life outside Memphis, roaming from place to place, finding odd jobs, and touring with his band. From memory and observation, O’Wain assembles a subtle and spare portrait of his roots, family, and ultimately discovers that his working-class upbringing is not so antithetical to the man he has become.

 

Genres: Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2019

Reviews

[Juliet Escoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book-- so smart, funny, and sad. O'Wain is a force.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moving Collection of Essays That Could Have Used Better Editing. I picked this book up because I thought it would be brutal in its similarity to my own life - I too am a son of the South that left home years ago to live a bit of a nomadic life (though far less transient than the author's). And it did hit home quite a bit, though maybe not as much as I was both hoping and fearing it might. Truly a stark, very real look at life and growing up in the South in the lower middle class. But in the acknowledgements, it becomes clear that this is a collection of essays rather than a truly unified narrative, and that makes the at times disjointed nature of this book become at least slightly more understandable. At the end of the day though, the book could have used a bit more editing to make this a bit more clear in some way or another and thus provide a bit more clarity and structure to the overall narrative. Still, an intriguing look and one that will certainly be enlightening to those who have never lived at this level in the region. Recommended.

[Howard Parsons · Rating 5 out of 5]

i loved this book a whole lot. i dog eared this book so much it doesn’t close anymore. a start to finish knockout.

[Cameron Redfern · Rating 5 out of 5]

Randall is amazing writer, he has lead a truly remarkable life, He writes as if Mark Twain and Bryan Seltzer from the Stray Cats had gotten together to live this wild ride, If you want to read about a truly remarkable person , who is wise and hip and full of rock a billy swagger. Hands down read this

[Maureen Stanton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a moving and beautifully book that tells more about life in the the blue-collar, working class economic strata than many which purport to do that (i.e., the horrible "Hillybilly Elegy" by J.D. Vance and the middling "Heartland" by Sarah Smarsh). The structure of the book veers from a traditional memoir narrative on occasion, inserting wholly separate essays that are related but interrupt the sense of being engrossed in a world. Still, this is a lovely affecting book about fathers and sons, and about striving for a place in a larger world.

[Elizabeth W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meander Belt is a beautiful and devastating meditation on identity and loss; O’Wain’s essays on the death and loss of family resonated deeply with me, and the navigation of his own identity within that narrative put into words my own similar experience contending with the loss of a parent. What O’Wain presents here is a flowing and emotional narrative of the complexity of identity, and it’s irreconcilable duality, fluid in one moment and yet constant, persistent, fixed, the next. Beautiful, emotional, and though-provoking.

[Clifford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although this terrific book is technically an essay collection, it reads much like a continuous narrative memoir, focused on the author's relationship with his father and brother, but also with other significant figures in his life. And a difficult life it was, too, at least growing up in the hardscrabble confines of his family's Memphis home. Beautifully written and at times quite emotional. Highly recommended.

[Sarah Mack · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.8 rounded up)

[Lin Kaatz Chary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must-read memoir from an up-and-coming writer. In beautifully written prose, O'Wain brings to life his own unique coming-of-age story with character portraits, especially of his father and his brother, the reader will not soon forget.

In this series of linked memoir essays, O'Wain isn't simply relating the events of his childhood and transition into adulthood as stories, as interesting as they are; he has the ability to get under the skin of these experiences to deliver a memoir that goes beyond story-telling and into reflection about the past in a way that is so often missing in other memoir attempts. I read the entire book in one sitting and cannot recommend it highly enough both for students of memoir writing and for anyone who enjoys a narrative of exceptional prose combined with a sensitive and engrossing read.

[Don Rath · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Outstanding Coming of Age Memoir

For anyone who has lost a parent, left and returned home, or taken what seems like too many years to find themselves, Meander Belt is a must-read. There is a great deal of loss in this book, but also an understated confidence that cuts through the edginess of the writer’s younger self with a beautiful sense of hope and betterment. Meander Belt blends essay and memoir with almost conversational ease.