Chinaberry Sidewalks
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in Chinaberry Sidewalks for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Plus, get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
You may have noticed that some of our books are identified as "deckle edge" in the title. Deckle edge books are bound with pages that are made to resemble handmade paper by applying a frayed texture to the edges. Deckle edge is an ornamental feature designed to set certain titles apart from books with machine-cut pages. See a larger image.
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
From the acclaimed musician comes a tender, surprising, and often uproarious memoir about his dirt-poor southeast Texas boyhood.
The only child of a hard-drinking father and a Holy Roller mother, Rodney Crowell was no stranger to bombast from an early age, whether knock-down-drag-outs at a local dive bar or fire-and-brimstone sermons at Pentecostal tent revivals. He was an expert at reading his father s mercurial moods and gauging exactly when his mother was likely to erupt, and even before he learned to ride a bike, he was often forced to take matters into his own hands. He broke up his parents raucous New Year s Eve party with gunfire and ended their slugfest at the local drive-in (actual restaurants weren t on the Crowells menu) by smashing a glass pop bottle over his own head.
Despite the violent undercurrents always threatening to burst to the surface, he fiercely loved his epilepsy-racked mother, who scorned boring preachers and improvised wildly when the bills went unpaid. And he idolized his blustering father, a honky-tonk man who took his boy to see Hank Williams, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash perform live, and bought him a drum set so he could join his band at age eleven.
Shot through with raggedy friends and their neighborhood capers, hilariously awkward adolescent angst, and an indelible depiction of the bloodlines Crowell came from, Chinaberry Sidewalks also vividly re-creates Houston in the fifties: a rough frontier town where icehouses sold beer by the gallon on paydays; teeming with musical venues from standard roadhouses to the Magnolia Gardens, where name-brand stars brought glamour to a place starved for it; filling up with cheap subdivisions where blue-collar day laborers could finally afford a house of their own; a place where apocalyptic hurricanes and pest infestations were nearly routine.
But at its heart this is Crowell s tribute to his parents and an exploration of their troubled yet ultimately redeeming romance. Wry, clear-eyed, and generous, it is, like the very best memoirs, firmly rooted in time and place and station, never dismissive, and truly fulfilling.
The only child of a hard-drinking father and a Holy Roller mother, Rodney Crowell was no stranger to bombast from an early age, whether knock-down-drag-outs at a local dive bar or fire-and-brimstone sermons at Pentecostal tent revivals. He was an expert at reading his father s mercurial moods and gauging exactly when his mother was likely to erupt, and even before he learned to ride a bike, he was often forced to take matters into his own hands. He broke up his parents raucous New Year s Eve party with gunfire and ended their slugfest at the local drive-in (actual restaurants weren t on the Crowells menu) by smashing a glass pop bottle over his own head.
Despite the violent undercurrents always threatening to burst to the surface, he fiercely loved his epilepsy-racked mother, who scorned boring preachers and improvised wildly when the bills went unpaid. And he idolized his blustering father, a honky-tonk man who took his boy to see Hank Williams, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash perform live, and bought him a drum set so he could join his band at age eleven.
Shot through with raggedy friends and their neighborhood capers, hilariously awkward adolescent angst, and an indelible depiction of the bloodlines Crowell came from, Chinaberry Sidewalks also vividly re-creates Houston in the fifties: a rough frontier town where icehouses sold beer by the gallon on paydays; teeming with musical venues from standard roadhouses to the Magnolia Gardens, where name-brand stars brought glamour to a place starved for it; filling up with cheap subdivisions where blue-collar day laborers could finally afford a house of their own; a place where apocalyptic hurricanes and pest infestations were nearly routine.
But at its heart this is Crowell s tribute to his parents and an exploration of their troubled yet ultimately redeeming romance. Wry, clear-eyed, and generous, it is, like the very best memoirs, firmly rooted in time and place and station, never dismissive, and truly fulfilling.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
After a few paragraphs I was wondering if Bill Cosby was using a pseudonym and had unknowingly struck on the name of one Country musics best modern song writers.
After one or two chapters I was convinced he had. Here was a book (in the beginning) fit for one of Cosby's famours childrens tales of Fat Harold etc. Except different names different venue. I must admit I woke my Wife more than once when laughing at Rodneys tales of childhood when reading this book long into the early hours.
I could not stop reading. Eventually I could not stop wondering where this man obtained such a large heart and soul.
Right from the start this was compelling, honest reading.
As the story progresses Rodney becomes a man guilty of writing a very, very beautiful, humorous and haunting and moving book full of feeling and insight.
I am not that easily moved, but at times I found myself fighting back tears of emotion as he described his part in what might have been at times an ugly period for himself and his parents. Every family has their ups and downs. This story is about far more than that and Rodney masterfully puts together a story of a loving couple
who seemingly ran the whole the gamut of life.
Instead of picking on the negatives (and there must have been plenty). Rodney takes time to pick out the love, goodness and genuiness of a hard pressed couple. He does it with humour, gentleness and love. If he were my Son, Son in law, friend or aquaintence I would be very proud of him. He is none of those but I am proud of him. I would tell him so if given the opportunity and be happy to do so. This writer is a MAN in the fullest, most positive sense. He is not afraid to show his emotions nor is he afraid of familial exposure. He tells it as it was and finds the best of reasons and motives for doing so. This is a very human love story of a man for his wife, and a woman for her man and a son brought up the best way they knew how, and as far as I am concerned thay did an excellent job.
For me a funny, hard, emotional and compelling read.
I honestly feel that most people reliving events such as this would have given us a negative epic and left us with a feeling of resentment for his family and a feeling that he had a chip on his shoulder. Maybe some would have used the opportunity to perhaps 'hit back' or 'even the score' because they may have felt 'hard done by'. Not so with this writer.
Thanks Rodney for sharing such a beautiful, insightful time with us. Very well done indeed.
Don't miss the opportunity of reading such a wonderful story by and excellent writer.
After one or two chapters I was convinced he had. Here was a book (in the beginning) fit for one of Cosby's famours childrens tales of Fat Harold etc. Except different names different venue. I must admit I woke my Wife more than once when laughing at Rodneys tales of childhood when reading this book long into the early hours.
I could not stop reading. Eventually I could not stop wondering where this man obtained such a large heart and soul.
Right from the start this was compelling, honest reading.
As the story progresses Rodney becomes a man guilty of writing a very, very beautiful, humorous and haunting and moving book full of feeling and insight.
I am not that easily moved, but at times I found myself fighting back tears of emotion as he described his part in what might have been at times an ugly period for himself and his parents. Every family has their ups and downs. This story is about far more than that and Rodney masterfully puts together a story of a loving couple
who seemingly ran the whole the gamut of life.
Instead of picking on the negatives (and there must have been plenty). Rodney takes time to pick out the love, goodness and genuiness of a hard pressed couple. He does it with humour, gentleness and love. If he were my Son, Son in law, friend or aquaintence I would be very proud of him. He is none of those but I am proud of him. I would tell him so if given the opportunity and be happy to do so. This writer is a MAN in the fullest, most positive sense. He is not afraid to show his emotions nor is he afraid of familial exposure. He tells it as it was and finds the best of reasons and motives for doing so. This is a very human love story of a man for his wife, and a woman for her man and a son brought up the best way they knew how, and as far as I am concerned thay did an excellent job.
For me a funny, hard, emotional and compelling read.
I honestly feel that most people reliving events such as this would have given us a negative epic and left us with a feeling of resentment for his family and a feeling that he had a chip on his shoulder. Maybe some would have used the opportunity to perhaps 'hit back' or 'even the score' because they may have felt 'hard done by'. Not so with this writer.
Thanks Rodney for sharing such a beautiful, insightful time with us. Very well done indeed.
Don't miss the opportunity of reading such a wonderful story by and excellent writer.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have been a fan of Rodney Crowell for a long time, he is one of the great singer songwriters of modern times. I bought this hoping to learn more of his life in music. I should have read the description first. In that sense, it is a disappointment. It has little or nothing to do with his career in music. Having got over that disappointment and that is my fault, I did read the book. It is well written. He paints pictures with his words. The characters, places and occurrences are described in such a way that one can picture them. His relatives certainly make for interesting reading. He describes his childhood in great detail. He has a love and respect for his parents that once you have rread this book, you may wonder why! His childhood was not one without diffulty or challenges. It describes the times he was brought up in and in that sense it is an interesting social commentary of the times and places. A well written and highly readable book. Like nothing I have read before. Writing this might have been a sort of therapy for Crowell. If you want to read about Crowells life in music, then this isn't the book to buy. I want to read Crowells autobiography....if it written with the quality, openness and descriptiveness of this book, it will be well worth reading. If you interestied in reading about life in Texas for a poor family in the 50s and 60s, this is worth a read.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
52 reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Never lost interest
30 Jan 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Buy it. It is rare that I read 130 pages on the afternoon that a book is delivered. It is rarer still when I read the other 130 pages within the next two days. Rodney writes books as well as he writes songs, and he really writes them himself. This is not a money making vanity publication, it is a classic homage to a highly dysfunctional, poverty stricken, stinky bottle of polluted water that slowly transforms into fine wine through the grace of, well, Rodney mostly. A lesser man would not have survived. You really need to read it, it is a work of love, hate and art. I expect many more novels from Rodney, it is obvious he has the gift.
18 of 21 people found the following review helpful
NY Times said it best
23 Jan 2011
Format:Hardcover
I read the review in the New York times, which was written by a book critic known to never take it easy on a writer, so I bought the book. It is poetic and linear, perfectly told. The words are chosen with care in each line, but reading it you can't help but know this is a talent of Crowell's not just the hard work and editing.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Chinaberry Joyride
5 Mar 2011
Format:Hardcover
For years I've listened to Rodney Crowell's music, wondering where the fiction begins and the "truth" ends in his songwriting. With "Chinaberry Sidewalks," the pieces all come together in this riveting memoir of his crazy quilt childhood in Texas. As I read "New Year's Eve, 1955" (the first chapter) my nose drew closer to the page, my pulse quickened and I realized I was in for one hell of a joyride.
Crowell creates full characters in his book - full of insanity, pathos and love.
Reluctantly accompanying his mother during the Pentecostal-soaked summer of 1955, Crowell writes: "Hating these holy-rolling, speaking-in-unknown-tongues free-for-alls she loves so well, I do my best to make the trip more miserable than it already is."
But even under the preposterous tutelage of a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher - "that poor man's Billy Graham," Crowell discovers a moment of grace, "In the wink of any eye (the preacher's), I saw a compassionate, tolerant and nonjudgmental God of love and great humor. My own faith was planted as a seed that morning, and there are days its fruit sustains me still."
Like Brenda Peterson's memoir, "I Want to Be Left Behind," it takes those who have survived a childhood of "chock full of sin" to speak with the authority of forgiveness, wisdom and love. As Crowell says in his song. "I know all I need is love." And he proves it with "Chinaberry Sidewalks."
Crowell creates full characters in his book - full of insanity, pathos and love.
Reluctantly accompanying his mother during the Pentecostal-soaked summer of 1955, Crowell writes: "Hating these holy-rolling, speaking-in-unknown-tongues free-for-alls she loves so well, I do my best to make the trip more miserable than it already is."
But even under the preposterous tutelage of a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher - "that poor man's Billy Graham," Crowell discovers a moment of grace, "In the wink of any eye (the preacher's), I saw a compassionate, tolerant and nonjudgmental God of love and great humor. My own faith was planted as a seed that morning, and there are days its fruit sustains me still."
Like Brenda Peterson's memoir, "I Want to Be Left Behind," it takes those who have survived a childhood of "chock full of sin" to speak with the authority of forgiveness, wisdom and love. As Crowell says in his song. "I know all I need is love." And he proves it with "Chinaberry Sidewalks."
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
