Tobacco Road in Around the World in 80 Books

Mar 12, 2017 Jim rated it really liked it

I get a bit on the uncomfortable side when I read a book like this. I get the same feeling I used to get when I used to watch one of the Ma and Pa Kettle movies or the Beverly Hillbillies ...I get a squirming sense of embarrassment on behalf of the characters who know very well the stigma associated with poverty. It's as if you must be defective in some way because you have not thrived as others have; you have not kept up with the times.

Some people have claimed that this book portrays the Ameri I get a bit on the uncomfortable side when I read a book like this. I get the same feeling I used to get when I used to watch one of the Ma and Pa Kettle movies or the Beverly Hillbillies ...I get a squirming sense of embarrassment on behalf of the characters who know very well the stigma associated with poverty. It's as if you must be defective in some way because you have not thrived as others have; you have not kept up with the times.

Some people have claimed that this book portrays the American
South in a negative way. I can't agree with that...I think it portrays Jeeter Lester in a negative way, and deservedly so. When your own wife is happy that your daughter was born with a harelip so you won't be sexually attracted to her, you know you have problems!

Jeeter is a shiftless layabout squatting on land that once belonged to his ancestors but was frittered away through years of misfortune and indolence. He and his wife Ada have raised a passel of young' uns, most of whom flew the Lester coop in search of greener pastures. It is significant that they never return or make contact with their parents. Remaining in the Lester coop are the misinformed and the malformed: Ellie May with her harelip and her brother Dude. Dude would need to get half a brain in order to qualify as a halfwit. Sister Pearl, the looker of the family, was married off at an early age to a yokel with a job. ~~There is reason to suspect that Pearl was sired on Ada by some party passing through, and this would account for her attractiveness.~~

As the tale unwinds, it becomes obvious that the Lesters are in their plight thanks to Jeeter, a stupid, shiftless scheming man. His reluctance to leave the ancestral land he no longer has the right to profit from will affect the lives of all who remain.

I think that Erskine has perfectly captured the essence of destitution with no prospects. He portrays the disdain shown by the successful to those less fortunate, even while the former fleece the latter of what money they have. He shows the grasping, scheming nature of the impoverished, manoeuvring to turn an acquaintanceship to personal advantage through loan or theft. Not least, he shows the utter hopelessness of the women who are basically the chattel of the protagonist; they share his future while having done nothing to deserve it.

I could hardly put this down once I got started on it. Parts of it made me cringe at distant memories, but I wouldn't rate the book as perfect. I would have liked to have seen Caldwell get into Ada's head a bit more, maybe have her articulate a bit about how her spirit was crushed after vowing to be Jeeter's wife through eternity. ...more

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Dec 28, 2015 Andy Plonka rated it really liked it

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Good Read Reading Challenge is a good thing for me. It makes me read classics like this which improve mt mind which I carefully avoided when I was younger. Great depiction of life in the urban Southern US during the depression era.

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