A Serigamy of Stories
In this memoir, a child’s recollections of her family and warm home life are lovingly preserved in a front-porch ambience. Windham, who frequently participates in oral storytelling sessions around the country, grew up in a small Alabama town in the early part of this century. She was surrounded by offbeat adults in those years, among them a doughty aunt, who was the town’s formidable postmistress, and a circuit-riding Baptist-preacher grandfather. They were fodder for legends within the family, as well as story-creators themselves. As Windham weaves her memories there are digressions into tales that mark the castes of a bygone South, tales that move in slow cadence and bring to life a family that accommodated all members in their entertaining oddities. The word “serigamy” is, according to the author, a family coinage, used through the generations to indicate “a goodly number,” and the word aptly applies as well to this charming retrospective.
Kathryn TuckerWindham grew up in Thomasville, Alabama, the youngest child in a large family of storytellers. For many years a Selma resident, Windham was a freelance writer, collected folklore, and photographed the changing scenes of her native South. A nationally recognized storyteller and a regular fixture on Alabama Public Radio, her commentaries were also featured on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” Her other books include Jeffrey Introduces Thirteen More Southern Ghosts, Jeffrey’s Latest Thirteen, Thirteen Georgia Ghosts and Jeffrey, Thirteen Mississippi Ghosts and Jeffrey, and Thirteen Tennessee Ghosts and Jeffrey.
