The Bear Bryant Funeral Train

By Brad Vice

Book Overview

A woman contemplates the difference between the madness of the Klan and a mob of escaped asylum inmates. A young rancher's son seeks to flee a hardscrabble Texas life through a football scholarship. A... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1579660754
• ISBN13: 9781579660758
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: River City Publishing
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.5" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

If You Read the Book, You'll Understand

Listen: the book is awesome. A bunch of people who didn't understand the literary strategy of the book got real upset and railroaded the hardcover edition out of print. That was a shame, and the shame was not on Brad Vice. It was a big huge loss, too, because these stories are damn good, and they don't read the same way as some of the sources upon which a couple of them are based. Brad Vice, by now, ought to be enjoying the rewards good work brings. I hope, at least, he's enjoying the good work itself, as I have been again this week. I give The Bear Bryant Funeral Train my strongest recommendation, and my bookshelves are holding a few spots open for future Brad Vice books.

Great Book of Southern Short Stories...Great Book

Yes, there is some controversy about this little book, but discerning readers should not let that take away from the brilliance of other stories around which there is no controversy. The chapters on "Chickensnake" and "Mules" are brilliant. Truly brilliant. Others border on brilliance as well. Combined with Bobby Dews' collection of short stories "Legends, Demons and Dreams," you have the best of Southern fiction today. Forget the controversy. Read the book. It's well worth it. So is Bobby Dews' book.

An Instant Collectible

This book, "The Bear Bryant Funeral Train", the author's first, was removed from every bookstore shortly after publication, due to the discovery that the short story entitled "Tuscaloosa Knights" contained many sections that were, by the author's own admission, "heavily borrowed" from Carl Carmer's 1934 work, "Tuscaloosa Nights." "The Bear Bryant Funeral Train" won the highly coveted Flannery O'Connor Award, which usually rockets a young writer into a successful literary career, but which, in this sad case, very likely has ended a career just as it was beginning. Because the publisher withdrew every copy from stores and destroyed all the copies, then withdrew the award from Mr. Vice, only a handful of copies remain, making this first-edition volume the key collector's item in the Flannery O'Connor series. Without a doubt, it will be worth many thousands of dollars in years to come. The publisher quietly removed all copies from stores before announcing that it was pulping the book--thus, very very few copies have actually made it into circulation. All of this is truly a sad development, as the material that was not plagiarized is quite brilliant. I hope that Mr. Vice, who is being investigated on ethics charges at the university where he teaches, will be able to survive this unhappy event and go on to have the chance to publish another first book--this time one that he has written entirely on his own.

Hide this book!

The University of Georgia Press has issued a recall on all of these books and rescinded the Flannery O'Connor Award based upon an intensely narrow-minded accusation of plagiarism. THIS IS ONLY AN ALLEGATION. Rather than correct what was obviously an editorial oversight on their part, the UGA Press has decided to unfairly punish Brad Vice. If you find a copy of this book, BUY IT. If you own a copy of this book, KEEP IT. Read it, re-read it, and tell your friends about it. Do not let UGA Press bully a fine writer and his appreciative and intelligent readers. Find out how much Brenn Jones of the SF Chronicle liked it at http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/23/RVGC9F7EK51.DTL & type=books

The Bear would be pleased

Even though there's not much football in this book, these stories pack the punch of Johnny Musso powering through the Vanderbilt defensive line. Roll Tide Roll!!