Clear Springs by Bobbie Ann Mason

An actual dialogue between myself and a friend:

Me: Holy crap, this book is boring.

Her: I like it. Doesn't it remind you of your childhood? You know, lightning bugs and milking cows and stuff?

Me: My childhood didn't have a damn thing to do with cows, thank you.

That pretty much sums up what I think about this book. Bobbie Ann Mason is a well-known author of "grit lit" from Kentucky whose work takes a very unadorned approach toward the minutiae of daily life. This is her memoir which recounts her time growing up in rural Clear Springs, Kentucky, through her career as a writer and academic and spends a lot of time detailing the personal lineage and history of her parents. It is well-written in a sort of unassuming way, and certain parts of it are interesting, but as a whole it is rather dull and I'm not sure why I should care, nor am I sure why exactly, out of the thousands upon thousands of novels and memoirs written by Southern authors, I should have to read this one.

That is all.