All Over but the Shoutin'

This chapter starts with a description of the rundown house where Bragg’s father took his family the last time they were all together.

Charles Bragg had told a tale about having a good job and a house, and his wife got her hopes up once again. He behaved like a family man for a time but inevitably turned to heavy drinking and violence again.

During this time, Bragg also spent time with his father’s family and got to know his grandparents Bobby, an “eccentric” who still drove a horse and wagon in 1965, and Velma, a “sad-eyed little woman who looked very much like the part Cherokee she was, a sweet-natured woman who hovered over the men when they drank whiskey...” (57).

The title of this chapter refers to Bragg’s first exposure to George Wallace and his anti-black political campaigning.

The main narrative of the chapter concerns Bragg’s father succumbing to another round of serious drinking and abandoning his family yet again.

This is a very short chapter concerning the dead “Baby Bragg,” whom his mother lost in childbirth. He never had a name or a chance to live.