It's our last SOUTH BOUND lecture of 2016, and we're lightening the mood! Over the past few months, we have been challenged to think critically about heritage, history, and even climate. On May 20th, Harrison Scott Key’s South Bound lecture will be something of a palette-cleanser.
We're kicking off the paperback tour of The World's Largest Man, the memoir penned by Key, a celebrated essayist and humorist. It is devastatingly funny book about his larger-than-life father, filled with hilarious stories about hunting, family holidays, and shotgun weddings. But, the humor serves as a launching pad for an exploration of the author’s family.
In these pages, Harrison jokes about his crazy Mississippi upbringing, the differences between him and his father, and pays respect to that quiet person who had his fair share of quirks – quirks that Harrison admittedly has acquired over the course of time. At the end of the book, Key says of his father, “His greatest lesson was the one he never said out loud, the thing a father should do, which is this: Be there. Always be there. And never stop being there, until you can’t be there anymore.”
We have explored some complex topics over the course of the past few months, such as creative process, racial barriers, historic eras and characters of note, and climate change. Harrison Scott Key’s book invites us to remember that family is such a basic, but important truth of our existence: family is all we really have. Family is always “there,” and we are who we are because of the people who raised us and shaped us.
Underneath the humor in The World’s Largest Man, there is a sweet, endearing tone of memory and love that makes this book such a meaningful experience. We invite you to share it with us on May 20th, as we listen to Harrison Scott Key tell us these stories and more.
WHAT: South Bound featuring Harrison Scott Key
WHEN: Friday, May 20, 2016 | VIP: 5 PM | General: 6 PM
WHERE: The Arts Building, Second Floor | 301 E. 11th Street, Chattanooga, TN
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE!
BOOK TRAILER: