Barrett Hathcock grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, and went to Rhodes College. After receiving his MFA at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, he moved to Birmingham and taught at Samford before returning to Memphis and to Rhodes to teach in the school’s English Department. Today, he writes for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital’s charity arm, ALSAC. Outside of work, Hathcock and his wife and family enjoy living in Harbor Town, north of downtown Memphis. And does this read as a class note, the kind you see in college alumni magazines?
It does, and it’s fitting: Hathcock once wrote profiles and class notes for the U of A-Birmingham alumni magazine, and his debut collection of linked short stories, The Portable Son (Aqueous Books), which was briefly covered in the Flyer a few weeks back, reads as a reaction to the class-note blueprint, with Hathcock’s central character, Peter Traxler, doing the reacting to two central questions: What the hell happened? And what the hell am I doing?
