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  • When the Century was Young

  • A Writer's Notebook
  • By: Dee Brown
  • Narrated by: Dee Brown
  • Length: 1 hr and 40 mins

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When the Century was Young

By: Dee Brown
Narrated by: Dee Brown
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Editorial reviews

Something between the sound of a music box and an old schoolhouse piano begins the program and when it stops, Dee Brown's slow drawl emerges. He reveals a quintessential small-town boy reaching for the big time, first in the arena of what we now call "scam" and, later, in the less disreputable field of journalism. The backcountry Ozark setting adds almost mythic dimensions to the stories. Brown isn't a polished reader. He's a well-honed writer who projects unease with the words as if, at times, he cannot believe he wrote them. Brown is authentic and sincere. More polish might be out of place.

Publisher's Summary

Listen as Dee Brown weaves humorous, richly detailed stories of his early years as a youthful entrepreneur and teenaged newspaperman.

Oil Booms and Flimflammers is about America's booming 20s seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy, including Brown's own hilarious foray into entrepreneurship. Teenaged Printer and Fledgling Journalist follows Brown after high school, when he learned the printer's trade, rudiments of journalism, and the mysteries of employer-employee relations at a small Ozark newspaper. In How Not to Report a Tornado, Brown is pressed into service as a teenaged reporter, sifts through rubble for tornado victims, and then rushes back to the newspaper office to compose his story directly on an old Linotype. With Encounter with the Newton County Law, Brown finds himself spending the night in Newton County's one-cell jail. The charge: bank robbery!

For Adults and Young Adults

©1993 Dee Alexander Brown (P)1993 August House Publishers, Inc.
  • Abridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic Reviews

"Dee Brown is a master storyteller." (Tulsa World)

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