Billy Watson's Croker Sack: Essays

By Franklin Burroughs

Book Overview

In South Carolina, a croker sack is any big cloth sack. When opened, it sometimes reveals more than expected, as do these deceptively simple narratives about fishing trips, flora and fauna, and memories of the past. Observing a snapping turtle, recounting the old age and death of a hunting dog, or talking with neighbors who shot a moose and hung it in their garage, Franklin Burroughs reflects on how human and natural histories interconnect. His writing is clear and still as a pond, and his distinctive and evocative voice resonates through the details."Elegant, unexpected, remarkable for their ability to weave through time and space and turns of emotion, these essays would do Montaigne or Samuel Johnson proud". -- The Cleveland Plain Dealer

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393028933
• ISBN13: 9780393028935
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 149 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

A Flawless Collection of Essays

Billy Watson's Croker Sack is candid and clear and Mr. Burroughs himself is an expert in syntax. The tales are honest and human without being sentimental. This is the type of book you listen to carefully, sounding out words, hearing them together. The style is self-effacing in some ways - I reread sentences, surprised the second time by their beauty, but more surprised that I didn't notice them as much the first time, the prose is so natural. And this is, perhaps, the best quality of the collection - that it so naturally evokes eloquence. I recommend this collection to anyone fascinated by words and sentences, but more to those seeking well-told yarns about the things that make us most human.