{"product_id":"9781887178778","title":"My Vita, If You Will: The Uncollected Ed McClanahan","description":"This gathering of short fiction ansd essays traces the artistic develpment of the masterful southern stylist and storyteller Ed McClanahan. As an \"autobiography of a voice,\" each piece is seasoned with McClanahan's own wry commentary: \"In the earliest stories collected  here, the attentive reader may detect....flashing neon signs, fly-specked mirrors, and characters whose eyes could be likened in various ways to black holes.\" In a later essay,\"Empathy Follows Sympathy,\" McClanahan reveals how his writing evolved from these gloomy tales to the ribald comedy for which he is well-loved. After McClanahan's exodus from Kentucky to California come his firsthand accounts of the Bay Area hippie culture: \"Grateful Dead I Have Known,\" a long prize-winning meditation about Jerry Garcia and the fanatical devotion of his fans; an insider's portrait of beat hero Neal Cassady; and a chronicle of a bus journey reunion with buddy Ken Kesey and other Merry Pranksters- -long-hairs now become gray-hairs. Whether reflecting on the once- radical urgency of a generation now fading, or a childhood that fellow Kentuckian Wendell Berry describes in his afterword as \" an \u003ci\u003eordeal\u003c\/i\u003e of provinciality,\" McClanahan writes with warmth and hard-earned wisdom.","brand":"Counterpoint Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47059467436272,"sku":"9781887178778","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781887178778_p0.jpg?v=1763606541","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781887178778","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}