We Might As Well Eat: How to Survive Tornadoes, Alabama Football, and Your Southern Family

In We Might As Well Eat, Terry Barr's second book of prose non-fiction, he is so effective and engaging with his use of the familiar essay that readers will find themselves wanting to join in with the other side of the conversation. However, this volume is more than just inviting. It is also filled with hard-earned courageous truths and a self-awareness far more keen than one ordinarily encounters." -Tim Peeler author of Checking Out and Wild in the Strike Zone"Terry Barr may be the Samuel Pepys reincarnate of Bessemer, Alabama. What a food-driven remembrance."--George Singleton, author of Half Mammals of Dixie"Terry Barr takes some classic Southern staples and concocts a unique, satisfying recipe in We Might As Well Eat: How to Survive Tornadoes, Alabama Football, and Your Southern Family. The first time through this wonderful collection of essays, you will devour everything in large bites. Then you'll return again and again-more slowly-savoring every story and anecdote that Barr reels out with his effortless, crystal-clear prose. Dig in."--Scott Gould, author of Strangers to Temptation "Cleared-eyed and courageous, Terry Barr's fine new memoir revisits his life growing up and raising a family in the American South. He bears witness to complicated times and eccentric characters, admitting early that as a sixty-year-old man, he's doesn't really quite know who he is. "I am a product of all that made me, a blended, thick soup of ethnic, religious and regional identity." Liberal son of a Jewish father and a Methodist mother, married to a Persian women, and father to two lovely daughters, this lifelong Alabama football fan and avid Faulkner scholar, admits that religion, politics, and football threaten to divide family loyalties, a family at times "frayed, bent and unmoored." Terry Barr's inquisitive voice, measured pace, and clear prose blend such disparities and serve as a loving roux for his coming to terms with his Southern upbringing and his life as a son, husband and father. Confident, wonderfully crafted, and moving, We Might as Well Eat: How to Survive Tornadoes, Alabama Football, and Your Southern Family is a terrific book."--James McKean, author of Bound