Part I, The Widow's Mite, Chapters 1-7 Summary and Analysis

In chapter one, "A man who buys books because they're pretty," Bragg begins by explaining that his mother and father were born on the Appalachian foothills on the Alabama-Georgia lines, about 120 miles west of Atlanta. Whites were poor and blacks were even poorer. But it was, in Bragg's opinion, the most beautiful place on earth. He was born in the summer of 1959, just on the cusp of the massive social change brought on by the Civil Rights Movement. While Bragg was never ashamed of being a Southerner, he also felt a need to explain himself. The only thing that didn't change in the South was religion; everyone was affected, even those who refused to believe. Even Bragg's father found God in the end.

Bragg's father had abandoned his family...