Rick's mother picks cotton by hand to support her children while the family subsists on welfare in rural Alabama.

Rick's father abandons the family for the final time, leaving his wife pregnant and the family without food or money.

Rick's father dies at age 41 from alcoholism; Bragg feels no grief and does not attend the funeral.

Rick takes one journalism class and lands his first job writing sports for a local Alabama newspaper.

Rick briefly marries but divorces when his wife makes clear she wants a different life than he can offer.

Rick's brother Mark develops his father's alcoholism and is eventually imprisoned, causing their mother constant suffering.

Rick accepts a job at the St. Petersburg Times, one of America's top newspapers, and moves to Florida.

During a Miami riot assignment, rioters throw rocks that shatter Rick's car window and strike him in the head.

Rick travels to Haiti to cover the violent aftermath of a military coup that ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Rick is accepted into the prestigious Nieman Fellowship journalism program at Harvard University.

Rick turns down a position at the Los Angeles Times and accepts a job at The New York Times.

Rick covers the Susan Smith case, initially writing her false kidnapping story before learning she drowned her own children.

Rick covers the Oklahoma City federal building bombing and is deeply shaken by the mass death of children inside.

Rick wins the Pulitzer Prize, the highest honor in journalism, for his feature writing at The New York Times.

Rick spends every dollar he has saved to buy his mother a house, fulfilling his most important life promise.

Rick Bragg grows up in extreme poverty in rural Alabama, raised almost entirely by a sacrificing mother after his alcoholic father abandons the family for the last time. After his father dies young and unmourned, Rick discovers journalism and launches a career that moves him from local sports coverage through a brief failed marriage to writing for major Florida newspapers. He covers violence in Miami and atrocities in Haiti before earning a spot in Harvard's elite Nieman Fellowship and landing his dream job at The New York Times. From New York he covers national tragedies including the Susan Smith murders and the Oklahoma City bombing, which cement his identity as a writer of so-called misery stories. He wins the Pulitzer Prize and returns to the South as a national correspondent. The arc of Pool 1 culminates in Rick spending every dollar he owns to buy his mother the house she spent her entire life dreaming about.

Rick Bragg's journey from poverty to Pulitzer Prize.

On his deathbed, Rick's father recounts drowning a North Korean soldier with his bare hands in a frozen lake.

The Bragg family moves into a dilapidated rented house during the last period they all live together.

A baby boy born to the Bragg family dies at birth and is never given a name.

Rick's mother loses her income from hand-picking cotton after harvesting machines eliminate that source of work.

Rick attends church services with his cousins hoping to find faith but leaves each time feeling profoundly alone.

Rick acquires a moped capable of reaching 60 miles per hour and rides it with reckless abandon.

Rick endures a brutally hot summer working construction for his Uncle Ed before his senior year of high school.

Rick's girlfriend visits his family home, sees how poor he is, and ends the relationship saying they are too different.

Rick races his car at dangerously high speed, crashes violently, and miraculously walks away from the wreck uninjured.

Local police round up Rick and his brother as murder suspects simply because of who they are and their poverty.

Rick covers the story of conjoined twins who later die and concludes that journalistic objectivity is impossible for him.

Rick falls into a Florida swamp among agitated alligators while covering a nighttime gator-hunting expedition.

Rick writes a story about Gangaram Mahes, a homeless man who repeatedly eats in restaurants knowing he cannot pay.

Rick returns to Haiti to report for The New York Times and finds the same horrifying violence and cruelty unchanged.

Rick's brothers Sam and Mark have a vicious fight in the yard outside their mother's newly purchased house.

Pool 2 begins with the haunting Korean War story Rick's father tells on his deathbed, which helps explain the damage war did to the man his family knew. It follows the Bragg family through specific low points — the baby who died unnamed at birth, the loss of cotton-picking work to machines, and the dilapidated rented house that marked the last time they all lived together. Rick's adolescence brings reckless moped rides, brutal summer labor, and the twin humiliations of being dumped for being poor and briefly suspected of murder simply for living in poverty. His Florida career produces both dark comedy — falling into a swamp full of agitated alligators — and painful lessons about journalistic objectivity when covering conjoined twins who die. The pool ends with Rick's return to a still-ravaged Haiti and the vicious fight his brothers have in the yard of their mother's new house, showing that not all wounds can be healed with money.

The details, setbacks, and side stories shaping Rick's world.

Rick visits his dying father, who gives him a .22 rifle and a library of beautiful bound books as his only inheritance.

Rick's mother pours his father's moonshine down the drain, and Rick fears his enraged father will kill her.

After her husband's final desertion, Rick's mother refuses to beg her family for help as the children nearly starve.

After her husband permanently leaves, Rick's mother withdraws from the community, ashamed to be seen in her poverty.

Rick takes a journalism class and begins writing for the college paper, discovering his path as a writer.

Rick covers his first serious death story about an accidental shooting and feels his first mix of professional pride and sadness.

Rick's wife falsely announces she is pregnant; Rick realizes he does not want family life and ends the marriage.

Rick spots piles of beer bottles covering his brother Mark's car floor and grasps the depth of Mark's alcoholism.

Rick confesses he avoided visiting Mark in prison because having a jailed brother did not fit his rising self-image.

Mentor Bill Kovach tells Rick at Harvard that he has a gift but crowds too many beautiful lines into his stories.

Rick writes about bodega owners killed in robberies in New York City and earns praise for writing a real New York story.

Rick is promoted to national correspondent for The New York Times and returns to cover the South from an Atlanta bureau.

Rick's grandmother Abigail dies of pneumonia, and Rick leaves her funeral early to sit with his grieving mother at home.

Rick brings his mother to New York City to celebrate his Pulitzer Prize win; she tells him she is very proud.

The memoir ends with Rick recalling how he sleepwalked as a child while his mother always found him and guided him safely home.

Pool 3 begins with Rick's final visit to his dying father and moves through the pivotal decisions and emotional awakenings that shape his character and drive. His mother's proud refusal to beg for help after abandonment and her retreat into shame-driven isolation reveal how deeply poverty damages the spirit. Rick's early journalism discoveries, his failed marriage, and his painful confession about avoiding his imprisoned brother Mark expose the personal costs of his fierce ambition. His year at Harvard with mentor Bill Kovach sharpens his craft and confirms his talent, while his first major New York Times success and a career promotion back to the South mark his arrival as a nationally significant journalist. The pool closes with his mother's tearful pride at his Pulitzer celebration and the memoir's final sleepwalking image, making clear that everything Rick achieved was built upon his mother's lifelong, unconditional love.