In Love With Defeat: The Making of a Southern Liberal
"This a good book written by a man who has seen his native South thrash and wail. Brandt Ayers always understood that his paper could be a force of good for even the weakest of its readership, and it is high time he told this personal story, as a kind of punctuation to that worthy tale." -- Rick Bragg, author ofThe Prince of FrogtownandAva's Man"Clear eyed and perceptive, grounded in community and global in outlook, Brandt Ayers has spent a brave lifetime of commentary calling his beloved South to redemption. Now, summarizing that lifetime as a family newspaperman in Anniston, Alabama, Ayers eloquently insists that the road, though rocky, has been up, and that South and nation are more nearly one than at any time since the founding of the Republic." -- Hodding Carter III, Professor of Leadership and Public Policy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill"During my half century of writing about Alabama, I have seldom encountered a more fascinating family than the Ayers of Anniston. For three generations, they have supplied us with some of our most independent thinking and acting citizens: Two generations of Baptist medical missionaries to China; three generations of our best newspaper editors and contributors to education and culture. Most importantly, as Brandt Ayers' memoir makes clear, they have been courageous champions of a different path in civic and public life, one (if followed) would have made Alabama a lot better place to live than it is." -- Wayne Flynt, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, Auburn University History Department"Brandy Ayers cares deeply for his Alabama and the American South. If both often fell short of his aspirations for them, he never felt them a lost cause. Ayers serves as a personable, insightful guide through his own life and times. I will add this memoir to my students' reading list of books by Southern journalists." -- Ferrel Guillory, Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Director of the Program on Public Life, University of North Carolina"Many of us southern liberals leave home and take our stand from a safe, bug-free distance. But Ayers has remained righteous in his time and place. He held his ground on the right side of history in print when it was dangerous to be on the wrong side of the regional status quo. That Ayers is one of the wittiest storytellers in the South which is to say, the universe makes this a pleasure as well an inspiration, a nuanced portrait of an individual struggling against the historic odds with honor and humor." -- Diane McWhorter, Pulitzer Prize-winning author ofCarry Me Home: Birmingham Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution"Better reading even the second time around.In Love with Defeatis the best commentary on us Southerners I have ever read." -- William Winter, former Mississippi governor