Tobacco Road Paperback – January 31, 2014

I had read this some sixty years ago while in high school. It was an "underground" copy because Caldwell was not thought appropriate for the feeble teenage mind. I have just finished re-reading it now and while it has somewhat harsh scenes in it, I think the teenage mind is up to the task.It starts as a tragedy and becomes more tragic. A very loosely-structured family is in a situation that is not tenable. This, along with their lack of personal abilities, makes the entire situation impossible. Then, we read how they each destroy themselves in one way or another.As a teenager, I had traveled through this area and Caldwell does a fine job of capturing the culture of the times. He is obviously writing from personal knowledge. I guess you could read a political statement in this but I chose not to do so.

Story of a fictitious Northern Georgian family. Describes how some members of the family have moved on and bettered their lives by getting away from their familial home; and how, those who remained, "intend" to improve their lot, yet make no real effort to do so. They, further, blame their circumstances on external factors (the rich and the bankers) rather on impotence in not actually making an effort to change their behavior."Tobacco Road" contains depiction of sexual content much the same as "God's Little Acre" which drew heavy criticism when it was released. It was, in fact, censured in Georgia where the action occurred. Within the context of the moral standards of today, hardly anyone would think twice about those passages in this book dealing with sexual attitudes and activities. It is quite tame compared with the available afternoon "soap operas" prime-time television drama.Overall, "Tobacco Road" was a pleasant read dealing with the attitudes of a poor southern family in the depression era of the 1930s.

There's a lot of controversy about this book. Is it a pulp novel, black comedy, tragedy, trage-comedy, does it "bash The South"? I can only say it's largely a little bit of all of the above. For sure it is a bare bones, no holds barred depiction of a moment in time. Characters that may not have been real per se but be assured there WERE real people quite like them. It not so much addresses as depicts the issues of poverty, ignorance, sloth yes but more so the phenomenon of being placed in the situation of having expectations, however low, placed upon you & then sinking to them; all the while feeling yourself a victim of the system that places those expectations. Violence, substance abuse, hunger, sexual abuse and promiscuity, desensitization are all depicted as the scourge of the rural South at the time. Oddly these things are lamented as the scourge of urban America now. So we've learned little other than how to transplant our problems' locale. It may be unflattering and downright disturbing but never the less an excellent read.

This review is not about the content of this book - it concerns the size of the font. Be advised that the font is very small. Unless you have great vision the book will be difficult to read. I loved this book in my youth and would like to read it again. I am trying to remain loyal to the printed page but some of today's reprints reduce the font dramatically to save printing cost.Something else about this book. There are multiple misspelled words on each page. It really distracts from the book. These are not intentional misspellings by the author for effect - they are printing errors. There are additional spacing and syntax errors on each page.Find another printing if you want to read and enjoy this book. I wish I had.

Strange powerful tour through the bottom of human decency and humanity staged at the bottom of the great depression.in the very poorest part of the country. poor in education, consideration and financial outlook and expectations.

Erskine Caldwell was a prolific Southern writer of twenty-five novels, twelve books of non-fiction, and about 150 short stories. He was determined to depict the life of the poor, both white and black, in the Deep South and was deeply sympathetic to their plight. He was often derided for being a corrupter of morals, a racist, and a traitor to Southern culture. Caldwell was not deterred and was always faithful to his efforts to realistically portray the issues of class and race.“Tobacco Road” (1932) is one of his earlier works and, along with “God’s Little Acre” (1933), was immensely popular, selling tens of million copies and being translated into 43 languages. It’s not an esoteric exercise of deep societal thought. It is, rather, a crude look at grinding poverty and ignorance written in the vernacular of people without education who are illiterate and superstitious while suffering from extreme poverty that creates crippling hunger and weakness of will. In the throes of such privation a better life can only be wished for and is the carrot on a stick that is opaquely viewed and never reached. All conversation within these families is an endless repetition of complaints of hunger pangs, hopeless dreams, and flights of imaginative sexual adventures.Most of the story occurs on or near the ramshackle Lester farm edged by a dusty tobacco road that was created by dragging large barrels of tobacco leaf to market. An endless parade of characters pass by; negroes who delight in mocking someone in a worse situation, poor whites looking for something they can wheedle or steal, and religious zealots looking for converts with subsidy funding all have a part in Caldwell’s story. The story can be summarized as turnip theft, marital discord, seduction of a young boy, purchase of a new car, and carelessness, all under a dark veil of constant hunger. The entire Lester clan is the focus of Caldwell’s insightful study of destitution, colloquial dialogue, and irrational behavior. This is a family of ignorance, timidity, brazenness, and ignorant impulses with Caldwell chronicling the diverse behaviors with honesty and dark humor.I have enjoyed this book several times. I have never failed to marvel at Caldwell’s insight as he unfurls a way of life most of us have not experienced nor imagined. His writing is impeccable. One of America’s most famous writers included Erskine Caldwell in the top five best American writers along with Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Dos Passos. The famous writer? William Faulkner, who immodestly included himself. Personally I sometimes enjoy Caldwell at least as much as the other four Faulkner selections.Schuyler T WallaceAuthor of TIN LIZARD TALES

Tobacco Road is the story of the Lesters, a family of sharecroppers living through a kind of end-stage poverty in 1930s America. It’s an incredibly harsh book. The humorous touches during the worst moments only provide the kind of light relief that casts a dark shadow.So what to make of it. I wondered if this was an expose book, helping readers become aware of the reality of extreme poverty. There’s probably something in that. I also wondered if the book was a morality tale showing what happens if you’re lazy and refuse to move with the times. There’s probably something in that too. Overall, however, I thought this was a book reflecting on the vagaries of human need.Well-fed psychologists in fancy universities would say that there is a hierarchy of need. People must meet their basic physical needs first, for food, shelter and reproduction. Ever more rarefied needs come later as the demands of each succeeding level are met. Things are not that simple in Tobacco Road. The story appears to exist right at the bottom of the hierarchy of need. The Lesters are starving and need food. Their shelter is falling apart. However, it is only a short jump between starvation and spiritual concerns. Jeeter Lester eats a few stolen turnips. As soon as his hunger pangs have settled, he is turning to spiritual justifications for his actions. Bessie, the bizarre preacher, eats those same stolen turnips while fulminating in fiery religious terms against the sin of theft. So what could I make of that? The desperate theft of food and comforts of religion go hand in hand. Religion is like a turnip.There are other bizarre jumps around the hierarchy of need. While reproduction is usually right there at the basic level, we watch Lov trying to ignore an ugly girl who is more than keen to give him as many babies as he likes. He is ensnared by the airy charms of her younger sister who has pretty hair, but won't let Lov near her. There are also strange judgements about priorities when fate occasionally brings opportunity. Bessie spends her entire inheritance of eight hundred dollars on a luxurious car, when that money could have saved the family if she had spent it on the necessities of farming. Similarly the daughters of the Lester family flee to the near-by city of Augusta not to earn money for food, but because they are attracted by the prospect of fashionable clothes. Then there is Jeeter himself, who puts the need to stay working his land before anything, even eating.So what do people need in Tobacco Road? What is the answer to their problems? Every time I tried to answer that question, put a simple moral on the story, the book would wriggle away and say something else.In the end, I kept coming back to the blackjack tree. Throughout the book, Jeeter is trying to sell the one thing that grows on his exhausted land, the unwanted, unworkable, unburnable, iron-hard wood of the blackjack tree: “a stunted variety of oak that used its sap in toughening the fibres instead of growing new layers and expanding the old, as other trees did.” Clearly, Jeeter is like the blackjack tree. He does not grow new layers or expand the old. He is just as useless and unworkable. Nevertheless, the blackjack is enduring, and in the end it will probably be the last thing standing.

Set during the Depression in the depleted farmlands surrounding Augusta, Georgia, Tobacco Road was first published in 1932.It tells the story of the Lesters, a family of white sharecroppers so destitute that most of their creditors have given up on them.Debased by poverty to an elemental state of ignorance and selfishness, the Lesters are preoccupied by their hunger, sexual longings, and fear that they will someday descend to a lower rung on the social ladder than the black families who live near them.Shocking, graphic, heartbreaking, bleak, often humorous, in a brilliant way. I can clearly see why Erskine Caldwell is regarded as a literary giant in the American psyche.

At 180 pages this is not a long read but it is an extremely interesting story which demands your attention throughout.The story is set in the Deep South, Georgia, during the great depression - 1929 -1939?Jeeter Lester has farming in his blood and is a man of the countryside who's not prepared to go anywhere else for work, even though he has none. He does a lot of thinking about work, but strapped for cash and living in poverty its years since he actually did anything other than bemoan his bad luck. Jeeter lives with his useless teenage son Dude, his faithful wife Ada, daughter, Ellie May, who unfortunately has a cleft lip & Grandma Lester who is constantly ignored by all. They are all penniless & starving.Lov Bensey is Jeeter's son in law, having married Jeeter's 12 year old daughter Pearl! This doesn't stop Jeeter from bushwhacking him for his hard earned sack of parsnips, which he has just completed a 9 mile hike to get!Into the story comes Bessie who is a self-proclaimed preacher of uncertain character!The story has some great characters, is delightfully put together, very dead pan and witty, though ultimately quite sad and thought provoking. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would especially recommend it to those who enjoy reading about the Deep South.

A novel about poor white farmers in the America South of the 1930's.Trigger warning: IT IS NOT STEINBECK. One of the most depressing and uncomfortable books I've ever read. After about half way through I didn't want to pick it up again, because I knew I would be reading another appalling, tragic event in the lives of the hapless heroes.The novel starts with a man going to his father in law to complain that his thirteen year old wife won't have sex with him. He has walked seven miles carrying a sack of turnips, and by the end of the episode the father in law has stolen the turnips and has run off to the woods to eat them. Meanwhile the man with the sack doesn't care, because he's having sex in the road with the thief's elder daughter.At that point, I thought I was getting a picaresque romp, but I was wrong.It didn't get easier, and there is no humour at all in this, just ignorance, poverty and stupidity.I recommend it, but don't complain to me if it makes you feel bad.

What a strange mixture of events from, what now is to us is another world. It makes you think of their wretched lives as something we could never endure but they had little choice. The book was also, surprisingly, explicit when dealing with sexual issues. Well worth reading by anyone interested in this period of American history.