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A Childhood  By  cover art

A Childhood

By: Harry Crews, Tobias Wolff - foreword
Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
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Publisher's summary

“One of the Finest Memoirs Ever Written” –The New Yorker

The highly acclaimed memoir of one of the most original American storytellers of the rural South

A Penguin Classic

Harry Crews grew up as the son of a sharecropper in Georgia at a time when “the rest of the country was just beginning to feel the real hurt of the Great Depression but it had been living in Bacon County for years.” Yet what he conveys in this moving, brutal autobiography of his first six years of life is an elegiac sense of community and roots from a rural South that had rarely been represented in this way. Interweaving his own memories including his bout with polio and a fascination with the Sears, Roebuck catalog, with the tales of relatives and friends, he re-creates a childhood of tenderness and violence, comedy and tragedy.

©2022 Harry Crews (P)2022 Penguin Audio
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

What listeners say about A Childhood

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astonishing

in the very recent past, in the America I hubristically think I know, this stunning memoir, replete with unknown phrases and desperate humanity in it's beauty and terror, is recorded here. READ this!!!

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Story rings true

Short of a few exaggerations this book describes farming in Bacon county in the 30’s to 60’s. I heard some great storytellers at Cartertown grocery. Although by late 50’s many farmers had a lot more machinery to help. My grandfather was Jesse Boatright but by 1962, when I started coming up each summer, he had no sharecroppers. Though an uncle sharecropper all his life I later learned.

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Familiar Places

very cool story, well read, and i currently live on 8th St in Springfield (Jax) so that was a pleasant surprise to hear familiar places 🤙🏽😊

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Thank god for Harry Crews

I absolutely love every book Mr. Crews has written. I never wanted this one to end. A sad, tough, humorous book that hits you in every spot human. It doesn’t get much better. RIP Mr Crews. Thank you for everything. JST-

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A True Walk Through the Past

Loved it. So many fond memories of the time and places in spite of the many sad events.

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Amazing tale but wrong narrator

No big issues but Harry Crews reader deserves a tougher voice. More gruff and grit.

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Great read

If you want, an excellent walk, back in time, told in the first person, this is a great read. Well written, great story.

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Fantastic.

Even with only cursory knowledge of life growing up in the south, I found this fascinating and enjoyable.

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I relished every bit of this

Recommended by Mary Karr. Now I see why. I live in another continent yet saw it all!

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The southern farm life

Read this if you’d like to hear about a childhood on a farm in the South.

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