{"product_id":"meander-belt-family-loss-and-coming-of-age-in-the-working-class-south-paperback-softback-9781496213310","title":"Meander Belt; Family, Loss, and Coming of Age in the Working-Class South (Paperback \/ softback) 9781496213310","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eMeander Belt\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eFamily, Loss, and Coming of Age in the Working-Class South\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eM. Randal O'Wain (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9781496213310\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 1 October 2019\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e216 pages\u003cbr\u003e21.6 x 14 x 1.6 cm, 0.284 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e“A tour de force of white working-class identity married to a writer’s imaginative hunger for words. What makes this book remarkable is the narrator’s steely tension between his innate desire for unknown worlds and the pullback to the roughed up Wild West of Memphis, where a hardworking but wounded father has planted the seeds of loyalty.”-Patricia Foster, author of \u003ci\u003eAll the Lost Girls\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eGirl from Soldier Creek\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e“Randal O’Wain’s memoir \u003ci\u003eMeander Belt\u003c\/i\u003e is more than the heart-wrenching story of a working-class southern family in the last decades of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first. In and through the struggles he and his family experience, O’Wain reveals the insidious effects of class and status on the most intimate aspects of American life. \u003ci\u003eMeander Belt\u003c\/i\u003e combines riveting storytelling with implicit emotional, psychosocial analysis; the result is the rarest of all books-a deeply thoughtful page-turner.”-Alan Shapiro, author of \u003ci\u003eReel to Reel\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eNight of the Republic\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e \u003cdiv\u003e“For all their poignant intimacy, the essays in \u003ci\u003eMeander Belt \u003c\/i\u003eare somehow also achingly universal, a self-portrait made up of wisdom and vulnerability that tells the story of a family, a place, and a culture.”-John D’Agata, author of \u003ci\u003eAbout a Mountain\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eMeander Belt\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"University of Nebraska Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52599896998168,"sku":"9781496213310","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/meander-belt-family-loss-and-coming-of-age-in-the-working-class-south-paperback-softback-9781496213310","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}