Do you mind if I say . . .

J.R. Moeringer's TENDER BAR was the non-fiction read for one of the FoxTale book clubs a couple of months ago.  If you've read it, "Do you mind if I say ____________?"  (insert $3 word of your choice) probably became part of your lexicon for a while too.  I said it so often around my house, my family was answering "Do you mind if I say 'shut your pie hole'?"  Now, as I'm finishing Rick Bragg's latest, PRINCE OF FROGTOWN, I'm living a little bit of his world.  The alcoholic father, dog fights, all-week drunks -- none of which I have experience in, mind you.  But that's what good writing does:  it transforms you, makes you feel that person's life.  It puts you in that moment and reminds you of something familiar, or else takes you someplace you'd never otherwise experience.  Now I realize this is not a profound thought, but it's a meaningful point, I think.  Reading is validation, giving you the comfort of knowing there are plenty of families out there that are weirder than your own.  How can you read RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, for instance, without the relief that comes from knowing your childhood can't hold a dysfunctional candle to Augustine Burroughs'?    And if your dad, drunk on cheap whiskey, entered the family pet in a dog fight against a more formidable contestant (warning:  it doesn't end well for the family pooch), wouldn't you want to know somebody like Rick Bragg lived through the same thing you did?  And turned out well despite it all?  Rick Bragg speaks to me.  I think I could read his grocery lists and be moved to tears.  But writing like PRINCE OF FROGTOWN and ALL OVER BUT THE SHOUTING and AVA'S MAN, and TENDER BAR --  The words get under my skin, and they'll get under yours.  How could they not?  Do you mind if I say "incontrivertibly?"