My Life

Lois Brown offers a straight retelling of her history in My Life. This autobiography is about growing up on a large farm in Newberry, Florida the daughter of Albert Preston Hodge and Lois Magnolia Stephens. It is interesting to note how simplicity makes the details of Browns story all the more compelling for readers. Perhaps it is the careful, loving attention the author gives to everyone who populates the book. A precision that is clean and bright makes even barbecued goat (her brother Walters favorite) seem a natural and necessary part of living. The book is built with well-organized chapters that manage to take all the threads of family history into a very readable whole. Again, it is Lois Browns talent for storytelling that comes to the fore. Nothing is out of place and each disparate chapter blends into another with nary a bump for the reader. The interesting details continue without flagging and the writing is seen to be a concise, consistent and steady rhythm that is almost hypnotic. The author knows all the details of local color so intimately that the reader is taken straight into the sights and sounds of a tobacco auction or reads of some delicious home cooking whose aromas can almost come out of the page. From early childhood onward, we see how the woman Lois Brown is formed from both the fertile ground of family history and an intelligent personality. Replete with pictures and stories that defined moments and true lives, here is the remarkable result of Lois Browns patience and determination to tell her story.