Pink Houses and Family Taverns

by Bradway, Becky

• ISBN13: 9780253215222
• ISBN10: 0253215226
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-02-01
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

Summary

These creative essays by Illinois native Becky Bradway are both personal and narrative: They are memoir, as the author debates important life decisions and reveals details about her upbringing in a poor rural Illinois community, presenting us with a vivid array of characters--family and friends--who made an impression on her; and they are commentary on place, as contemporary events lead the author to engage the topics of race relations, class consciousness, social status, music/culture/landscape, and creative impulses. The essays are complemented by a selection of black-and-white photographs by Midwestern artists who share the author's vision of place.Pink Houses and Family Taverns is a collection of creative non-fiction essays by Becky Bradway, who grew up in rural Illinois and later came back to her home state to settle. The essays are both personal and narrative: They are memoir, as the author debates important life decisions and reveals details about her upbringing among poor country folk in rural Illinois, presenting us with a vivid array of characters--family and friends--who made an impression on her; and they are commentary on place, as contemporary events lead the author to engage the topics of race relations, class consciousness, social status, music/culture/landscape, and creative impulses. Bradway writes in a style that is as unpretentious as it is ingratiating, oftentimes humorous and occasionally sardonic, and she approaches her subjects with sincerity, open-mindedness, and compassion. The essays are complemented by a selection of black-and-white photographs by Midwestern artists who share the author's vision of place.

Author Biography

Becky Bradway is a college professor and creative writer whose creative nonfiction essays and short stories have appeared in DoubleTake, North American Review, and American Fiction, among other publications. She lives in Normal, Illinois with husband, three children, and assorted pets. After working as an editor, secretary, janitor, Dairy Queen server, and UPS clerk, she now teaches creative writing and U.S. Studies at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois.

Raymond Bial, professional photographer and author, has published more than thirty critically acclaimed books of photographs for children and adults. These include a series of books on Native American tribes, and other titles of interest, most recently including A Handful of Dirt, The Ghost of Honeymoon Creek, Ghost Towns of the American West, and One-Room School. He lives with his wife and three children in Urbana, Illinois.

Katharine E. Wright, a former zookeeper, has taught creative writing, ESL, and children's literature at several universities. She now lives in State College, Pennsylvania with her husband and daughter.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xiii
Michael Martone
Acknowledgments	xvii
List of Photographs	xix
here and now in soy city
Overcome	2	(16)
Confirmation	18	(12)
Claiming Soy City	30	(12)
The language of Grace	42	(12)
back to normal
Blading B/N	54	(14)
The Better Porch	68	(10)
Ask Lord Byron	78	(14)
Defending the Land	92	(18)
growing up with rednecks and punks
Painted Birds, Sangamon Coyote	110	(16)
Lost Cause and Sin	126	(10)
Pink Houses and family Taverns: A Ride Through Mellencamp Town	136	(12)
Women Among Pigs	148	(14)
Dancing Lines and Squares	162	(12)
We're So Pretty	174	(14)
getting out to other places
Stars on Holy Water	188	(14)
Last Train	202	(16)
Graduation	218	(13)
Notes	231