My grandfather's finger
By: Edward Swift ; photographs by Lynn Lennon.
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Athens
Language: eng
Number of pages: 245
Subjects: Swift, Edward, 1943- -- Childhood and youth; Authors, American -- 20th century -- Biography; Family -- Texas, East; Texas, East -- Social life and customs; Texas, East -- Biography
Description: Not long ago the Big Thicket of East Texas was still one of those places singular in its southernness, like the Mississippi Delta or the Carolina Low Country. Now its old-timers and their ways are nearly gone. They will not be forgotten, though, for in My Grandfather's Finger Edward Swift recalls a Big Thicket populated by family and friends as gloriously vibrant and enigmatic as the land itself.

We meet, among others, Mother, a widowed war bride who would spring-clean the inside of her house with a garden hose, and Aunt Coleta, childlike and always surrounded by an entourage of kids half enchanted by her and half scared witless. Then there are Uncle Frank, who, with self-fulfilling flair, would have drawn a pistol at the merest suggestion that his family was dysfunctional, and of course, Grandfather, who lost his finger to a machete and his mind to cough medicine.