Kate Mayfield's memoir starts out well enough. She herself along with her mortician dad and the family's cook-housekeeper Bells quickly attracted my attention and favor. As did her description of a small, small Southern town, which echoed Larry McMurtry's "The Last Picture Show" portrayal of life in a small, small Texas town. My own experiences of life in several small towns had confirmed both of these literary portraits.
However, as my reading continued it felt more and more like a poorly written pulp novel! Almost all the major characters morph into unlikable folks. the writer's older sister especially gets demonized. She herself becomes a trashy, repulsive person by time she reaches adulthood. She starts unabashed use of the f-bomb, always a speedy turn-off any time I encounter it whether reading fiction or nonfiction.
It came to the point that it was so over-the-top extreme that I seriously wondered whether it was a memoir (thus, nonfiction) or was it histrionic, poorly written fiction. So offensive did it become that I merely skimmed the final chapters, vainly seeking some redeeming passage to lure me back!