Author Larry Brown was honored for his novel Father and Son at the Southern Festival of Books on October 3, 1997. The award was presented to him at the Nashville festival by the Southern Book Critics Circle, a coalition of book reviewers for publications in the Southern states. Their annual awards are presented to authors of fiction or nonfiction about the South. This was the second time that Brown has received such an award. In 1992 he received his first Critics Circle award for his novel Joe.