M. Randal O鈥橶ain鈥檚 memoir features standard ingredients of a classic country song: beat-up trucks, cigarette smoke, and a nostalgic father-son relationship. Yet at the same time, it manages to pull the rug out from under stereotypes of working class life in the South.
Violence soaks the pages of 鈥溾�� (University of Nebraska Press/2019), not in gory detail, rather as a wry aftertaste.
The preface of O鈥橶ain鈥檚 memoir eschews accuracy. Rather he lets his memory be true to itself, eroding and choosing new paths. At times O鈥橶ain skirts the trauma of his cultural incongruence and sexual assault, other times, he plummets over the edge of a recollection.
Host Frank Stasio discusses the socioeconomic ceilings of Southern society with author M. Randal O鈥橶ain, an assistant teaching professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. O鈥橶ain will share his creative process at and will speak at the in Raleigh.
