..". Becky Bradway writes compellingly about the place where she was raised and still lives, but she also knows that the hidden component of place is time and its ceaseless motion and the motion it spawns in all of us. On these many stable planes, we are always passing through."
from the Foreword by Michael Martone

Much of what inspires Pink Houses and Family Taverns, a collection of creative nonfiction by Becky Bradway, is the author s upbringing in rural southern Illinois. Coming of age among a family of carpenters, housewives, and factory workers, Bradway works to get an...

The 42 essays in this collection take their inspiration from the Midwest-not just from its physical terrain but from its emotional terrain as well. They come from writers of diverse backgrounds: poets, novelists, filmmakers, and journalists; some who came and stayed, some who came and left, and some who were born and raised in this place. The essays revolve generally around issues of conflict between place and identity, and the theme of diversity-be it religious, sexual, racial, artistic, cultural, occupational, or geographical-runs throughout. Writers featured in this collection include...