From telling about being frightened by the possibility of having his secret transgressions exposed by a prophesying minister, to relating a picnic date interrupted by an amazing encounter with a startled deer, to recounting with bluntness and compassion the problems alcohol abuse caused for his friends and family members, Blackmon reaches for—and finds—an honest connection with readers, no matter where they grew up. 

What others say...

"Jimmy Blackmon is an American warrior in the best sense of the word. He has gone a long way in this world, but he has never forgotten that the red clay of his beloved Gordon County, Georgia is where it began and where his heart remains. His is a story of good times, good people and good memories. His is a story best told by a Southerner. Blackmon tells it well.

--Dick Yarbrough - author and syndicated columnist  

"Just when you think all the honest writers who captured all the great regions of this country have disappeared and too much American writing these days is shallow stuff, off key, set in the land of nowhere, a writer like Jimmy Blackmon crops up in that fertile literary soil of the South-Wendell Berry, Reynolds Price, Eudora Welty, Faulkner, Harper Lee, Walker Percy and others-reminding us again of the verities and virtues of the true tale, told by a man rooted in place, who sings the South like a hymn. You will find your own voice joining in, page after page." 

-- Norbert Blei, author of the Door County trilogy and other works