Searching for Rainey Hill

I loved the title of this book and couldn’t wait to read it. After all, the author was a fellow Alabamian, a Baptist and a former teacher, like me. Like most self-published memoirs, however, appeal for “Searching for Rainey Hill” is probably limited to friends and family of the author. 

Weiser almost certainly writes the way she taught her students to write: clear, descriptive sentences, subjects and verbs in complete agreement. Her writing is easy to follow. There is little transition from one topic to another, however, which can be jarring for the reader. Many paragraphs start and stop seemingly out of nowhere, omitting the flow that a reader needs.

Another issue, common to books of this genre, is that it focuses on details that do not hold much interest for a stranger to the author. On the other hand, if Weiser were my aunt or my grandmother (or maybe even a beloved friend — I am sure there are many), I think I would hang on every detail, fascinated by the family history.