Billy Ray's Farm: Essays from a Place Called Tula

by Larry Brown

Book Overview

InBilly Ray's Farm,Larry Brown brings the appealing blend of candor, humor, and poignancy of his acclaimed novelsFayandFather and Sonto nine personal essays that explore the emotional and physical landscape of the corner of Mississippi he calls home. The centerpiece of this collection offers a moving description of life on his son's cattle farm, capturing Brown's deep-seated attachment to his family and to the land. In other pieces, Brown takes readers...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743225244
• ISBN13: 9780743225243
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Touchstone Books
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

a round-up from 3.75 stars

I have, had, and will continue to have such respect for Larry Brown--first off, that this man quite simply decided to be a writer one day, and from there worked his butt off to make that happen. His tales of writing several novels and over a hundred short stories before he wrote anything that he considered the work of a writer is quite simply archetypal. When there seems to be some concern about the effect of prodigious MFA program on the state and audience of writing, Larry Brown reminded us that it is work ethic, not education, that makes a writer. Another great aspect of the legend of Larry Brown is the simplicity of his intent and execution. While the critic looks at writing as a mish-mash of symbols and metaphors removed from intent, Brown saw it from the blue-collar perspective--a story about characters who remind us of ourselves. The connections people have with their environments are direct and substantial--people come from a place, a patch of ground that smells and feels familiar to them; they come from groups of people who help shape them and help them identify who they are. And it is this last point that this book revolves around. While Brown reminds us in one or two of the essays in this collection of his work ethic in the realm of writing, most of the writing here is about place and the anchor that it provides. We are taken through a tour of blues bars and fishing, of working on a farm and chasing coyotes and helping calves emerge from their mothers and building houses by hand. While some of these essays, for example the tremendously long centerpiece, don't hold a lot of drive to make each page worth turning only after the previous has been soaked up for its every syllable, the simple ethic that speaks volumes is distinctly there. Of course, there is also the spirit of play that is such a commodity in Brown's work--an essay in second-person about the hardships of a book tour, for example--and this only fuels Brown's pure love for his work. While sometimes I found myself preferring his fiction over his nonfiction, I have been inspired to pick up The Rabbit Factory again, or Joe, just to touch that flavor of Brown all over again. Perhaps this book is more enjoyable as an occasional read, something to pick up when between books or between episodes of another book, to let the essays sit separately and resound in the mind on their own rather than read one next to the other and hope for overriding connections to progress and develop, but this is no doubt a good reminder of the pure talent we lost when Larry Brown left us.

Beautiful writing

After reading Larry Brown's memoir/essay collection "Billy Ray's Farm", I felt so good about it- I mean, it was one of the finest reading experiences I'd had in years, that I decided to write the author and thank him for writing it. That's when I found out that Mr. Brown had passed away. What a fine writer we've lost.

Perfectly simple!!

Larry Brown gets better with each book published. This book is quintessential Larry Brown. Simple, sparse, and completely accessible. Some people may be surprised at the lighter tones in this book of essays. It just goes to show the honesty in everything Brown writes. I have a little Larry Brown story that I think his fans would appreciate. I had the pleasure of hearing Brown read from Billy Ray's Farm at a bookshop in New York City. By mistake someone in the press printed the time of the reading incorrectly by almost two hours. Two people walked in and were devastated that they missed his reading. One of the employees told them that he was still in the back if they wanted to go talk to them. They were both a little awestruck. They're huge fans of his. After getting up the nerve they went up to them and told them how much his writing meant to them and how sorry they were to miss the reading. So what do you think he did? He took these two people into a corner of the store and read two chapters to them. Only them. It was a great thing to see and it's that quality that comes through in all of his stories. Truth and fiction. He is by far my favorite writer working today. I'm a big fan of Jim Harrison and Harry Crews as well, being from the south. If you haven't read "Fay" yet, pick it up as soon as you can. It's an amazing story. Brown does what all great writers do. He makes you forget that you're reading. Can't wait to see what's next.

Earthy essays on rural life written with a natural innocence

One of these days when I get through cleaning up from the storm, I'm going to start building a little cabin, right over there above the pond, up in the deep part of that shade.--Larry BrownLarry Brown has published seven earlier works: two books of short stories (Facing the Music and Big Bad Love), an acclaimed memoir (On Fire), and four novels (Dirty Work, Joe, Father and Son, and Fay).Billy Ray's Farm contains ten essays dealing with, among other things, the author's struggling apprenticeship to become a published author {"Harry Crews: Mentor and Friend"), his unsuccessful stalking of a goat-killing coyote ("Goatsongs"), the heartbreak of cow ownership and his son's frustrated efforts to build a thriving cattle business ("Billy Ray's Farm"), a big "fish grab" at the Enid Spillway ("So Much Fish, So Close to Home"), and his determination to carve an enclave out of the wilderness by building single-handedly a ten-by-twelve cabin ("Shack").City slickers unfamiliar with rural life will learn from Brown all about calfpullers and other arcane mysteries.Like Hemingway, Brown writes with a sparse, down-to-earth, no-nonsense style, with a clarity and precision unlike the convoluted sentences of Faulkner's turgid prose. When critics compare Brown to Faulkner, therefore, they do not mean the tempo of Brown's style but rather the tone of his stories, which, like Faulkner, are written from the heart and spirit, with compassion and a love for the land and people of Mississippi, Brown's microcosmic "postage stamp" universe.By the way, in case you've never been there, Tula is a small town situated some twenty miles miles south-southeast of Oxford, Miss. (the site of Faulkner's home).Brown writes with honesty and (often self-deprecating) humor, albeit a melancholy humor tinged with irony. His earthy language has a natural innocence, like cow droppings on a footpath.In "discovering" Larry Brown, I am a Johnny-come-lately. Billy Ray's Farm is the first of his works I have read, but it definitely will not be the last.If you grow weary of the stale stuff abounding nowadays, Billy Ray's Farm will revive you like a fresh breeze blowing through the live oak trees.

Brown's Essays From Tula

Larry Brown's newest book of non-fiction, Billy Ray's Farm, gives anyone with an interest in the author's background a generous helping of what his life is like, both as a writer and a man. The title essay alone is worth the price of admission, but one also gets literary tributes to Harry Crews, Madison Jones, and Madison Bell; ruminations on growing up in rural Mississippi and how his life has changed since becoming a writer; explorations of the joys and difficulties of fatherhood; and healthy doses of the Mississippi landscape that comes to life so memorably in his novels. In its scope, the book reminds one of Crews' own Blood And Grits--the language is sparse but tough and to the point, and the reader never quite knows which realm of the heart and mind and hand the next page will reveal. If you're a fan of Brown's novels, this book will only deepen your understanding of where his material comes from and how faithful he is to it. If you've never read his fiction, this book is a perfect introduction to the world according to Brown.