Mississippi Sissy
Product Type: Book
Product Price: $14.00
Manufacturer: Picador
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Description
Mississippi Sissy is destined to become an American classic
In a book that echoes the time-honored fiction of Harper Lee and Flannery O'Connor and memoirs by Mary Karr and Augusten Burroughs, Kevin Sessums brings the American South and the experiences of a strange little Mississippi boy to life.
Reviews
Rating: 1 / 5
Date: 2010-07-14
Summary: "Well yes... so what really..."
Apparently everyone in the world thinks they have a book in them.
Stop that!
The writing was clumsy and dense and repetitive. I thought it would never end and its not even a fat book!
A real lack of connection between the reader and the writer was ever present.
Even worse than 'Running with Scissors'.
If you enjoy ordinary tales of ordinary people who live pretty routine ordinary lives and feel a need to write (in a very ordinary way) about themselves perhaps this is for you.
Rating: 2 / 5
Date: 2009-10-17
Summary: "zzZZZzzzzZZZ"
Pretentious, self-indulgent, and by far the most boring book I have read in a very long time.
Rating: 2 / 5
Date: 2009-09-15
Summary: "poor"
Seemed like a crybaby [...]. If you like child porn or gay [...] then yes this book is for you. If you don't well then it was a waste of time. Luckily I bought it at the dollar tree so I only wasted [...] on it. I could not have been more dissapointed. Some of the stories just seem way too farfetched, others go into gross detail that does not seem necessary for the story. There is a million and one fantastic [...]novels/biographies, this is not one of them.
Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2009-08-16
Summary: "make that 3.5 stars..."
One would think 'Mississippi Sissy' would be a memoir about a gay man struggling with, and overcoming homophobia. Nope, it's not that at all. Well it's certainly a memoir of a gay man growing up in Mississippi but he barely makes reference to any sort of homophobia. Instead we have the author carefully selecting important episodes in his life, mostly involving racial issues of the 1960s, and presents them to the reader in a haphazard fashion. A couple of these episodes are simply terrific - that is, painfully moving. But too many fall flat. And the author seems to dwell on certain facets (eg, going into extremely graphic detail on his homosexual acts) and dismisses others (eg, he devotes all of two sentences about a girlfriend he feared he had impregnated). And why he suddenly injects the memoir of his brother meeting Billy Graham is anyone's guess, ... the author wasn't present at this meeting.
Bottom line: a couple of marvelous vignettes generally saves this well written yet sloppy autobiography.
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2009-08-11
Summary: "Why didn't I write this?"
This is not a review as much as it is a kick in the butt to me for not writing it! (I can also furnish a photo holding a baseball bat) I grew up in Tupelo Mississippi in the 50's and about a third of this book is of my own experience. I could have added the sexual experiences with the Baptist minister or the choir director or the Cub Scout leader and made a bit longer book or added more about my own escape to New York City. It was a joy to read and to know I was not alone at the time even though, of course, we all thought we were alone. An enjoyable read and the vernacular was a joy to "hear" again.