On the Southern Literary Trail discussion

Larry Brown was the son of sharecroppers. When he was born on July 9, 1951, his father, Knox was sharecropping in Tula, Mississippi. Family members on both sides of his family were country folk. They worked the land, hunted and fished, for food as well as pleasure.

After a stint in the United States Marine Corps, Brown returned to Oxford, Mississippi, in 1972. He became a fireman in 1973. He worked odd jobs, bagging groceries, planting pine trees, among other things.

He was convinced he could write salable fiction and was self taught churning out two novels and nearly one hundred short stories with little success.

However, when his story "Facing the Music" was selected to be included in the Mississippi Review in 1986, Brown came to the attention of Shannon Ravenel, the managing editor of Algonquin Books. Brown's first collection of short fiction Facing the Music: Stories was published by Algonquin September 1, 1989.

Brown's novels include:
Dirty Work, 1989
Joe, 1992
Father and Son, 1996
Fay, 2000
The Rabbit Factory, 2003

Brown died of a heart attack November 24, 2004. He was close to finishing his sixth novel, A Miracle of Catfish: A Novel in Progress. It was published posthumously in 2007.

In addition to his novels, Brown also completed another collection of short fiction, Big Bad Love: Stories, 1990, and two works of non-fiction, On Fire, and Billy Ray's Farm: Essays from a Place Called Tula.

Often compared to Faulkner, Brown represents the working class and his works reflect the hard scrabble life of the working class. While Faulkner was among the greatest of authors, Brown will be remembered as the author who made the working class the complete focus of his work.

When asked why he wrote, Brown is reported to have said he didn't want his three children to grow up and work in a factory.

The writer acknowledges The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 9: Literature as the source of information provided in this post.

I've only read Big Bad Love of his ouevre. Is he a suggested author?

I've got this beautiful small press, small print run (265) of Billy Ray's Farm published by Wisteria Press out of Georgia. It is signed by Larry Brown and Barry Moser. I'm so glad I was intelligent enough to buy this when it was first out. Mr. Brown left us way too early.

Richard wrote: "I've only read Big Bad Love of his ouevre. Is he a suggested author?"

Absolutely!

A Miracle of Catfish, although unfinished, is well worth reading.

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashvil...

I just started a Miracle Of Catfish having saved it for so long. I'll be sad to finish the last thing he wrote having relished everything else he's written, but I'm going to savour every page. One of my favourite writers.