cover image Alone Among the Living

Alone Among the Living

G. Richard Hoard. University of Georgia Press, $24.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-8203-1610-9

Hoard, a Methodist minister and radio sportscaster, was 14 when his father, a prosecutor in rural Georgia, was killed by a car bomb. A local bootlegger whose activities had been disrupted by the father was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment; his four accomplices were all given long prison terms. But this memoir is less about the crime than about the author's adolescence, playing football, dating problems, drinking and, finally, finding God. Hoard's athletic exploits are boringly repeated, as are his seemingly endless crushes on girls. Also flat is his meeting with his father's killer after many years. (July)