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In Andy Corren's family stories, the 'Dirtbag Queen' is his mom

The obituary for Renay Corren was not your normal newspaper obit.

Courtesy
Andy Corren.

One of the first sentences went like this: “The bawdy, fertile, redheaded matriarch of a sprawling Jewish-Mexican-Redneck American family has kicked it.”

It went on to describe Renay’s life as a card shark, pothead, reader of trashy novels, and prolific spender of every dollar that passed through her hands.

That obit went viral. It was written by her son Andy Corren, a writer in New York City.

And he has now expanded it into a memoir of his mother called “Dirtbag Queen,” which focuses on Andy’s near-feral childhood in Fayetteville, N.C., before moving on to his mother’s final days among her squabbling family in El Paso.

It is a book of love and chaos and frequent profanity.

Those of you with delicate ears should know that all of that spills over into my talk with Andy.

I think you’ll find that despite the chaos, the love part is what comes through the most.

Tommy Tomlinson has hosted the podcast SouthBound for WFAE since 2017. He also does a commentary, On My Mind, which airs every Monday.