Looking for Andy Griffith, Evan Dalton Smith
Looking for Andy Griffith, Evan Dalton Smith
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Looking for Andy Griffith
A Father's Journey

Author: Evan Dalton Smith

Narrator: Evan Dalton Smith

Unabridged: 5 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/28/2024

Synopsis

Andy Griffith (1926-2012) is one of North Carolina's most beloved exports, capturing America's heart as Sheriff Andy Taylor. Evan Dalton Smith was born in the North Carolina Piedmont over four decades after Andy, just an hour south of Griffith's hometown of Mount Airy. Both were small-town boys who grew up in similar places, where the counties were dry and the churches plentiful. But for both, there was darkness, crushed hopes, and tragedy, hidden just below the surface.

For Smith and many generations in North Carolina, Andy Griffith was like the air—everywhere, all the time, a part of daily life. Even after he left the state, Smith always felt the pull of home and the lingering ghost of Andy alongside it. This is an exploration on celebrity and the self, on home and what that means when you leave it, and why we love and admire the people we do—even if we've never met them—all told through the entwined lives of iconic actor Andy Griffith and writer Evan Dalton Smith. It is through Smith's telling of Griffith's life that he finds his own story, one that is both informed by and freed from the legacy of one of North Carolina's most famous sons.

About Evan Dalton Smith

Evan Dalton Smith's writing has appeared in the LA Times, LA Review of Books, Paris Review, New Yorker, Slate, and elsewhere and has been awarded residencies at Yaddo, Millay Arts, and MacDowell.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Marianne

I listened to this wandering disjointed memoir that was more about the author’s growth than about Andy GriffithZ it was all over the map about the author, Andy Griffith, NC history and random people associated (or not) with Andy. Offbeat.......more

Goodreads review by Sarahfina

''Looking for Andy Griffith'' is a quasi-memoir-biography that intertwines the author's childhood in North Carolina with that of our titular Folk Hero (who became something of a Surrogate Father Figure to Mr Evan Dalton Smith; Andy was something of a Father America to all children of the 1960s). It'......more

Goodreads review by Koren

I didn't read the synopsis before I started this book, so I went into it thinking it was a biography of Andy Griffith, but most of the book is about the author. Quite often I would be reading about his troubles or the history of a place and time and wonder how it connected to Andy Griffith, and even......more

Goodreads review by Michelle

Listening to the audiobook, I could feel the author's pain from several life events. I hope he has found healing. I do need to point out that not all author's make good narrators. Good luck with everything.......more

Goodreads review by Steve

An interesting parallel biography of Andy Griffith and Smith himself. Both grew up poor in North Carolina. It was written during the COVID pandemic.......more

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