Mama Makes Up Her Mind - Book 49

Do you remember Bailey White?  She used to be on NPR back in the 1990s.  Maybe she still is. I haven't seriously listened to NPR in a long time, but anyway she used to tell stories about her eccentric Mama and life in the the South.   (I think I stopped listening when the Clinton-Lewinsky thing was going on and I had young children I didn't really want listening to the news.) Anyway, I found the stories really enjoyable.  White has a lovely southern drawl and she told or read the stories well.  Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Other Dangers of Southern Living is a collection of stories about Mama and other things.  I found this book in a used bookstore in Yorktown, VA while Rick and I were off for our weekend away.

I shouldn't have read this book in such close proximity to the other collection of stories I've read recently, though.  These really paled by comparison.  I'll grant that they are in a completely different style.  The stories by J. Mulrooney were each separate works of fiction, finely tuned and deeply philosophical.  Mama Makes Up Her Mind are rather rambling tales about Bailey's Mama and the other eccentric, quirky southerners (including herself) that add flavor to her quiet country life.  The stories are funny, sometimes laugh out loud funny, but there is nothing much under the surface here.  Just light, charming reminisces.

The stories started out well but I found the book really lagged in the middle.  There just didn't seem to quite enough material to be a full book length.  I found my inner writing teacher coming out.  I kept having flashbacks to when I taught writing last year.  I wanted to write in the margin next to several of the final paragraphs, "weak wrap up' or 'conclusion is stilted and rushed.'    White is just recounting that one time when cousin so and so did that crazy thing.......and there isn't a conclusion to draw so she just kind of ends them awkwardly.

But then towards the end of the book, the stories picked up.  I especially loved her stories about teaching first graders.  I loved the story of visiting her favorite used bookstore!  And she mentions a writer I had never heard of before, Lafcadio Hearn!

Anyway, this book was a fun, light read.  For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.