{"id":25260,"date":"2015-06-17T10:48:29","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T15:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=25260"},"modified":"2015-06-18T17:09:43","modified_gmt":"2015-06-18T22:09:43","slug":"the-worlds-largest-man-author-harrison-scott-key-at-off-square-books-june-17-by-loren-hankins-bost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/the-worlds-largest-man-author-harrison-scott-key-at-off-square-books-june-17-by-loren-hankins-bost\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe World\u2019s Largest Man\u201d Author Harrison Scott Key at Off Square Books June 17 (by Loren Hankins-Bost)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"0617-SqB-Key\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"HarrisonScottKeyu_HighRes-Publicity-2\"<\/a> Harrison Scott Key was born in Memphis, Tenn., and lives there with his father, Pop, his brother, Bird, and his mother until his father decides to move the family back \u201chome\u201d to Mississippi. Through farm work, football, and hunting, Pop works to turn his boy, who he believes is soft, into a Southern man. However, farm work, football, and especially hunting are Harrison\u2019s own personal hell. What ensues is a hilarious look at Southern life in the 1980s from the view point of a bookish boy who desperately wants his father\u2019s approval but also desperately wants to stop shooting at wild animals and getting up at 4am. Although Harrison doesn\u2019t realize it at the time, Pop teaches and exposes his son to many life lessons, some good and some bad.<\/span><\/p>\n

Harrison begins to learn this when he meets and marries his wife. Before her first Thanksgiving with the Keys he has to decode some of the strange customs and rituals of his family\u2019s home, such as why the men eat first while the women wait in the living room.<\/span><\/p>\n

Harrison must then transition into a marriage with a modern woman from a household where his mother brought his father anything he wanted the moment he yelled for it. (Sweet tea. Pie. The remote. Anything.) While figuring out his wife and three daughters Harrison comes to realize he is much more of his father\u2019s son than he realized.<\/span><\/p>\n

With his use of sarcasm and wit Key brings his story of a city boy growing up in Mississippi to life. Although Key is from Mississippi, he has the ability to look at and portray life in the Deep South through the eyes of an outsider. His stories of parenting and life with three children are touching and genuine. Although this is a memoir it is also a labor of love for his father who has always been in his eyes The World\u2019s Largest Man.<\/span><\/p>\n

Harrison Scott Key will read from his first novel, <\/em>The World\u2019s Largest Man, on Wednesday, June 17, at 5 pm at Off Square Books.\u00a0<\/em><\/span> \"The<\/a>
\n<\/u><\/p>\n

\u2013<\/p>\n

This article was printed in The Local Voice <\/em>#231 (published June 11, 2015).<\/span>
\n To download the PDF of this issue, click here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harrison Scott Key was born in Memphis, Tenn., and lives there with his father, Pop, his brother, Bird,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":25266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-literary-events"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/FEAT.jpg?fit=620%2C349&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}