Book Club Discussion Questions
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
"Since I never really had a grandfather," Bragg writes in the prologue, "I
decided to make me one. . . . I built him up from dirt level, using
half-forgotten sayings, half-remembered stories and a few yellowed, brittle,
black-and-white photographs that, under the watch of my kin, I handled like
diamonds" [p. 10]. The result is a vividly drawn portrait of a man who made a
profound and lasting impression on all those who knew him. Charlie Bundrum, the
father of Bragg's mother, was a poor, backwoods roofer and sometime maker and
seller of moonshine. He was a man who lived all his life in poverty and settled
his arguments with his fists—a man so quick he could snatch a squirrel out of
a tree, so strong he could throw two highway patrolmen out of a beer joint, and
so fearless he could stare down the barrel of a shotgun and take it away from a
hothead who threatened his family. But he was also a generous and loyal friend,
a loving husband, father, and grandfather who worked fiercely to stave off
starvation during the Great Depression, moving his family twenty-one times in
ten years in the hope of finding better work. Bragg brings his grandfather fully
to life, not by turning him into a saint but by revealing his faults—his
proclivity for fighting and love of "likker"—as well as all those qualities
that brought hundreds of people to his funeral and could still bring tears to
the eyes of his family members forty years after his death.
Though not the kind of man often found in history books, Charlie Bundrum was a
hero to many, and in Bragg's gripping narrative he is a representative figure of
a vanishing culture, "the last bridge between those old, wild days of the river
and this more civilized time" [p. 236]. Although Bragg was never acquainted with
his grandfather in life, in
Ava's Man he comes to know the man behind the
family myth and gives readers the unique and unforgettable pleasure of knowing
him as well.
Discussion Questions
- In the prologue, Rick Bragg wonders about his grandfather, "What kind
of man was this . . . who is so beloved, so missed, that the mere mention of his
death would make [his family] cry forty-two years after he was preached into the
sky?" [p. 9] How does the book answer this question? What kind of man is Charlie Bundrum? Why does his memory evoke such powerful emotions in those who knew him?
- Bragg says that he wrote this story "for a lot of reasons," one of
which was "to give one more glimpse into a vanishing culture" [p. 13]. How does
he create a vivid picture of that culture? What does he admire about it? How is
it different from "the new South"? What other reasons compelled Bragg to write
about a grandfather he never knew?
- Bragg says that Charlie Bundrum was "blessed with that beautiful,
selective morality that we Southerners are famous for. Even as a boy, he thought
people who steal were trash, real trash. . . . Yet he saw absolutely nothing
wrong with downing a full pint of likker . . . before engaging in a fistfight
that sometimes required hospitalization" [p. 53]. What kind of moral code does
Charlie live by? Are his frequent acts of violence justifiable? In what sense
can Charlie be called a hero?
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- How does the author develop themes of identity and belonging throughout the narrative?
- What role does the setting play in shaping the characters' decisions and relationships?
- Discuss how the ending reframes the events of the story. Were you surprised?
Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Vintage.
Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.
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