Where I Come From: Stories from the Deep South

It is hard to read anything Rick Bragg writes without hearing a slow, deep Southern accent rolling out each word. Where I Come From: Stories from the Deep South is no exception.

Comprised of essays and articles written over the last decade for Southern Living and Garden and Gun magazines, the pieces run the gamut from a love of Tupperware, a hatred of the trend of Hot Chicken in Nashville, and the heartbreaking reality of what it means to watch an old way of life die. Bragg, an Alabaman by birth, writes of old men and women who wake at four in the morning for a jubilee—a phenomenon in which sea creatures beach themselves for an hour or so during hurricane weather. He notes the power of the perfect tomato sandwich, the faulty permanence of an at-home perm, and the moment a child becomes—in theory—their parent’s caretaker.

With every essay and every topic, Bragg makes it clear that the stories he tells from the deep South are, at their heart, the stories of the people who have touched him and created the world he loves so much. Where I Come From has something for everyone, and if you don’t cry at least once while reading it, I do not know if we can be friends.