Porch Talk

Philip Gulley has become the voice of small–town life and an observer of humanity without match. With his heartwarming, humorous storytelling, his books have both lump–in–the–throat poignancy and laugh–out–loud humor. In this collection of stories told from his own life experiences, Gulley's musings on such topics as leisure, marriage, faith, enjoyment, and more hold an earthy wisdom that reminds us of what we hold dear, and what's truly important in life. These witty stories reflect the kind of conversations Gulley overheard in his youth, in a time when neighbors gathered on front porches across America, a glass of lemonade in hand, the sounds of crickets buzzing in the air, and lazy stories spilled from lips from generation to generation. "Social scientists and preachers offer a number of reasons for the decline of civil society: broken homes, poverty, disease, television, and increasing secularism, to name a few. I believe all that is wronte with our world can be attributed to the shortage of front porches and the talks we had on them. Somewhere around 1950, builders left off the front porch to save money, and we've had nothing but problems ever since."

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.