About the book
"It made me laugh! It made me cry!" Surely, there is no older
cliché to describe a book than that one, yet how else can Chris Cox’s
new book of essays, The Way We Say Goodbye, be described? In one chapter,
Cox recalls using his position as a young newspaper reporter writing a
review of a community theater production of "The Diary of Anne
Frank" as a means to persuade the lead actress to go out with him,
while in another chapter he is coping with his father’s death. In
between is the stuff of life, with essays on including a variety of
topics, including chronic complainers, family reunions, romantic failures,
and his brother’s insistence on grabbing a bite at the drive-thru on the
way to the hospital with his wife already in labor. Give the book to ten
readers, and they will most likely choose ten different favorites. Such is
the variety and range of The Way We Say Goodbye.
Sample of the Work:
"These days, it seems, mothers are growing up with their
daughters. They are hip, these mothers, speaking the same language as
their kids, hanging out in the same places, shopping for the same clothes,
scratching at the screen door of their youth, able to see in, yet somehow
locked out."
"My Mother, the Lush"
"Hunkered down among rows of dried up, sun-withered cornstalks on
a windless night, it is exceedingly difficult to be absolutely silent,
even when you are being hunted down by large men who want to kill you.
These men were rednecks—possibly rifle-bearing—and they thrashed
violently through the rows of ruined corn stomping on fallen ears of corn
like Godzilla crushing cars in Tokyo."
"A Couple of Bad Seeds"
These days, I'm looking more and more like Marlon Brando in "The
Godfather," except his cheeks were stuffed with cotton, while mine
are stuffed with…well, food most of the time. The Godfather sat with a
cat in his lap. These days, my stomach sits in mine."
What others say:
"The depth of his writing comes not from using big words or
spinning a web of complex thought, but from his reverence and appreciation
for and the voice he gives to the everyday experiences that give life
meaning. He finds a lot of humor in everyday life and you’ll find more
than a cackle or two between his pages….but his real forte is painting
pictures with words. I consider myself a writer and pretty good with
metaphor, but in Chris Cox I have more than met my match."
--Bob Bamberg
About the Author
Chris Cox is a columnist for the Smoky Mountain News, and the
author of another book, Waking Up in a Cornfield. His columns have
won numerous awards on the state and national level and have been
reprinted in magazines such as The Reader's Digest and Smoky
Mountain Living. He teaches English at Southwestern Community College
in Sylva, NC.
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