All Over but the Shoutin'

Bragg tells us that he “kept my promise to my mother on November 2, 1996. I took every dollar I had and bought her a house, a good house, the first thing of any real value she has ever owned” (308-9). This is Bragg’s way of paying his mother back for all of her sacrifices raising him and his brothers. It is a very important milestone in his life.

This chapter is Bragg’s message to his deceased father about his mother’s new house and how it represents a kind of healing for him. He reviews the issues he had hating his father for how he treated his wife and his sons. Bragg also repeats his hypothesis that his father’s tour in the Korean War damaged him in ways that he could never cope with, except by escaping into a bottle.

After Bragg’s mother moves into her new house, his two brothers have a major fight in the yard. Bragg tells us, “My little brother came to see her. He was drinking, a little. We had all asked him not to come there, when he was...My big brother, Sam, drove up about the same time...I guess they had to fight. They had to, because of who we are’ (321-22).