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    Southern Discomfort: A Memoir
    Southern Discomfort: A Memoir
    Southern Discomfort: A Memoir
    Audiobook8 hours

    Southern Discomfort: A Memoir

    Written by Tena Clark

    Narrated by Tena Clark

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    “Southern Discomfort is a raw, thought-provoking examination of privilege, racism, sexism, the masks we wear to conform to society’s expectations, and the journey toward authentic identity.” —Read with Us: Caste, An Oprah’s Book Club Discussion Guide

    For fans of beloved memoirs like Educated and The Glass Castle, a “raw and deeply honest” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) true story set in rural Mississippi during the Civil Rights era about a white girl coming of age in a repressive society and the woman who gave her the strength to forge her own path—the black nanny who cared for her.

    In her memoir that is a “story of love and fury” (Jackson Clarion-Ledger), Grammy Award-winning songwriter and producer Tena Clark recounts her chaotic childhood in a time fraught with racial and social tension. Tena was born in 1953 in a tiny Mississippi town close to the Alabama border, where the legacy of slavery and racial injustice still permeated every aspect of life. On the outside, Tena’s childhood looked like a fairytale. Her father was one of the richest men in the state; her mother was a regal beauty. The family lived on a sprawling farm and had the only swimming pool in town; Tena was given her first car—a royal blue Camaro—at twelve.

    But behind closed doors, Tena’s family life was deeply lonely and dysfunctional. By the time she was three, her parents’ marriage had dissolved into a swamp of alcohol, rampant infidelity, and guns. Adding to the turmoil, Tena understood from a very young age that she was different from her three older sisters, all of whom had been beauty queens and majorettes. Tena knew she didn’t want to be a majorette—she wanted to marry one.

    On Tena’s tenth birthday, her mother, emboldened by alcoholism and enraged by her husband’s incessant cheating, walked out for good, instantly becoming an outcast in their society. Tena was left in the care of her nanny, Virgie, even though she was raising nine of her own children and was not allowed to eat from the family’s plates or use their bathroom. It was Virgie’s acceptance and unconditional love that gave Tena the courage to stand up to her domineering father, the faith to believe in her mother’s love, and the strength to be her true self.

    Combining the spirit of brave coming-of-age memoirs such as The Glass Castle and vivid, evocative Southern fiction like To Kill a Mockingbird, Southern Discomfort is “an unforgettable southern story… [that] sings brightly to the incredible strength of family ties and the great power of love” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) and is destined to become a new classic.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateOct 2, 2018
    ISBN9781508263029
    Author

    Tena Clark

    Tena Clark is a Grammy Award-winning songwriter, music producer, and activist. She lives in Atlanta. Southern Discomfort is her first book. 

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    Reviews for Southern Discomfort

    4.5/5

    37 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Southern discomfort: a memoir by Tena Clark
      (Scribd audiobook )

      One thing I can say and if you read this book you will probably agree with is Tena Clark certainly did not have a boring childhood as she was growing up. In fact I think it’s safe to say her alcoholic mother and her daddy’s wandering eye made life downright horrible at times. Her one steady person aside from her sister was her families maid .

      Tena‘s story is one of resilience, faith, family, and accepting of oneself. The author herself is an amazing woman. Her story is well worth the read for she is an inspiration to us all.
    • 5/5
      Growing up in the south she was able to write all the smallest details of the joys and the tribulations of that area in that time frame. Really loved the audiobook.
    • 4/5
      "My roots ran deep into the red earth; the land felt as much a part of me as my limbs, my heart. I hated it with a fury. I loved it with an all-consuming passion. This is the great paradox of the South. It's a Savage place, a complicated place, and yet it still burrows into you, like the fangs of one of the water moccasins I used to hunt as a young girl down the Chickasawhay River behind our farm. There's a venom in the soil. But there's an alluring beauty to it as well"Teny grew up in Waynesboro, Mississippi, deep in the Jim Crow south. Her parents married when her mom was only fifteen, her dad from a very poor background. Yet, he became the richest man in the county, built a big house for his wife and four daughters. Their marriage beyond dysfunctional by the time of Tenys birth, she the youngest by ten years. Her mother sucuumbing more and more to alcohol to drown her unhappiness with her husband and his constant adulteries. Screaming, yelling their fighting the background to her days. Their black housekeeper Virgie providing the only consistency and unconditional love in which she could depend.Sixties and race relations were changing, but no where more slowly than in Mississippi. The ku Klux Klan were still active and a threat to those blacks and whites that didn't toe the line. Times that for the longest time Tent couldn't understand. The dysfunction in her family, ever present, led her to forge her own path. Surprisingly there was also occassins of love, times when her parents surprised her with their understanding. She was also gay, something she could not acknowledge nor tell her parents until her college years. Her parents, their relationship with her were complicated, and at the end the people they were surprised her the most.A fascinating look at Southern mores, a changing racial world, and a family that despite their lack of money problems, had more than its fair share of unhappiness.