At this point, the preacher Bessie enters the scene. Sister Bessie Rice, like Ellie May, also has a deformity of the face. Bessie’s nose contains no bone, and so when looking straight at her face one can see straight into her nostrils, like a pig. Despite this, Jeeter is still attracted to her. She does some preaching and praying for everyone’s sins, and then proposes marriage to Dude. However, Dude is more interested in her offer of letting him drive the new automobile that she anticipates purchasing than in actually marrying her. Bessie then goes home to her hovel to ask God whether or not she and Dude should get married.

Caldwell attended but did not graduate from Erskine College, a Presbyterian school in nearby South Carolina. [3] Career [ edit ]Caldwell claimed that he wrote the novel as "a rebuke of the perfumed 'moonlight and magnolias' literature of the South." Well, it was that.

I have underlined what I question. Does poverty do that to the extent that it is drawn in this book? I do not equate poverty with stupidity. The Lesters had seventeen kids. Five died. When the novel begins only two (Dude and Ellie May, an eighteen-year-old with an extremely ugly cleft lip) remain still at home with mom (Ada), dad (Jeeter) and grandma. The son Dude who is sixteen gets married to a women preacher named Bessie Rice. She is thirty-nine. She has a deformed face. These six individuals and a few others are drawn as imbeciles, as animals, as depraved, crude human beings. Religion is used as an excuse - for laziness, for doing nothing, for accepting fate. The only sign of hope are the ten children who have left. Little is known or said about them. The little that is said draws them too as unforgiving, cruel and uncompassionate individuals. It takes a few hours to spend with a family like the Lesters, reading their story. It takes a lifetime to appreciate the message behind it.Through the 1930s Caldwell and his first wife Helen managed a bookstore in Maine. Following their divorce Caldwell married photographer Margaret Bourke-White, collaborating with her on three photo-documentaries: You Have Seen Their Faces (1937), North of the Danube (1939), and Say, Is This The USA (1941). [15] During World War II, Caldwell obtained a visa from the USSR that allowed him to travel to Ukraine and work as a foreign correspondent, documenting the war effort there. [16] [14] One of the few times in my time here on goodreads when I feel like writing: OMG. ... OMG, and really meaning it.

With that said, it bothers me to hear comments that readers didn’t like the book because it was depressing, sad, dark, and inhumane. Even the word ‘ignorance’ came up; the ignorance of the characters. Caldwell occasionally steps somewhat clumsily into the narrative to discuss his message more boldly. Otherwise he lets the story provide the details of the rich in power, tenant farmers set loose with nothing, the land being lost to poor use practices over generations. a b c d e f g h i "Erskine Caldwell Dead at 83". AP NEWS. Paradise Valley, Arizona. April 12, 1987 . Retrieved October 1, 2022. The land kept the Lester family in food, clothing, and shelter for generations but when the land gradually lost the needed nutrients it grew less and less. A much larger land area (a plantation, can’t recall) belonging to the Lesters was sold off gradually by each generation. Over time the land simply gave out from being overused with the nutrients gradually depleted from the planting of tobacco and later, cotton. Caldwell’s characterization of America’s lowest class may have been published in 1932, but its legacy (and their progeny) still abounds. U.S. pop culture is rife with representatives: Ernest T. Bass, Jethro Bodine, Junior Samples, Larry the Cable Guy…Is Caldwell criticizing society, which provided no help, OR the individuals for letting themselves fall to such a low level? One feels no sympathy for any character. Their behavior makes this impossible. I don't quite know what the author is trying to say. Yes, poverty destroys, but these individuals need not have fallen so low. So who is at fault? At the beginning of Tobacco Road, the Lesters’ family friend, Lov Bensey, trudges home, near the train yard, with a bushel of turnips he obtained 7 miles away. Lov makes a stop at the Lesters’ house to talk to Jeeter about Lov's wife, Pearl, who is also Jeeter’s twelve year old daughter. He also encounters Dude, who at sixteen is the youngest of the Lester sons; Jeeter’s wife, Ada; eighteen-year-old Ellie May, who has a cleft lip; and Grandma Lester. The family is starving, and tries to steal Lov’s turnips. Annoyed more than sympathetic or pitying, Lov goes home. a b c d McDowell, Edwin (April 13, 1987). "Erskine Caldwell, 83, Is Dead; Wrote Stark Novels Of South". The New York Times . Retrieved October 1, 2022.