The Skyland post. [volume] (West Jefferson, N.C.) 193?-1988, 1938-02-17
Letter To Editor
THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER
The Foremost Newspaper in
The Carolinas'
Editorial Department

H.
have read with interest the re-
views Of Shadows Slant North
which have appeared in your paper,
because of the varied reactions they
reveal, and I can appreciate your
impartiality in publishing divergent
views of the novel. Ordinarily /
would not comment on review,
because it is a matter Of personal
J opinion, but I believe it is unfair
both to the people of Ashe county
and to the book to give them no
other ground on which to base their
conception Of it than reviews that
contain some important mis-state-
ments of fact.
! A reviewer has every right to ex-
press his honest opinion of book,
whether favorable or unfavorable,
SO longs as he sticks to the facts.
That is his business. But, when he
departs from the facts and tries to
take away from the book the things
that are in it and to attribute to it
other things that are not in it at all,
his work is no longer review, but
becomes a form of literary dishon-
esty that should not be allowed to
60 uncorrected. In several particu-
lars, ! find that your reviewers have
mot stuck to the facts.
One of these writers has charged
that Shadows Slant North" does
not present the cultural side of life
in Ashe county. Apparently she
has tried to give the impression that
the book portrays only "gun totin'
illiterates''.
What are the facts? The heroine
of the book is college woman who
puts education within reach of all
her brothers and sisters except the
absent one and works necessarily
for a better schools and roads. An
other of the girls completes her col
lege course and makes a remarkable
success in business Two of the
other children finish high school,
This makes a high percentage for
any family, and I wish my family
could boast such batting average
in education. But that is not all.
One of the girls became, engaged to
a college man who builds one of the
finest consolidated schools in his
part Of the state and sacrifices his
young life in the cause of educa-
ton. The heroine's lover goes
through college, through medical
school, completes his education in
Europe under one of the most cele-
brated surgeons of the time, re-
turns home to become himself IA
NOUS surgeon and to build a hospi-
tai in his native mountains. Some
iof the most important scenes in the
book are laid in the halls of schools
and colleges. In fact, ! if schools
and colleges, churches and libraries
and hospitals were taken out of the
book, there would be very little
left. If these people and these in
stitutions do not represent the Gull
tural side of life, it would be in
teresting indeed to hear your re-
viewers definition of culture.
/ Another false charge against the
book is that it. deals with moonshin-
ers. l read the manuscript at least
three times before it was ready for
the publisher. I then copitd every
line of it from the first word to the
last. When some revi sions were
made at the publishers request, I
copied most Of it second time.
And I have read the book twice
since it was published. In all of
those readings and copyings I did
not find one moonshiner-riot even
mention of one.
True, there is bootlegger, but
bootleggers and moonshiners are
entirely different characters. The
moonshiner is the illicit manufac-
turer; the bootlegger is the illicit
distributor. The bootlegger is not
peculiar to the mountains, but
thrives wherever there is prohibi-
ton. We have more Of them in
Mecklenburg than you can nno In
any half dozen counties beyond
the Blue Ridge. Any novelist who
pretends to give cross-section of
life in a prohibition community, as
Shadows Slant North does for
Ashe county, could not ignore the
bootlegger, for there is no COM
munity in which everything is
sweetness and light. "Cross-section
means just what it implies-from
top to bottom, the cream on the
top, the skinned milk in the mid
die, and the drtgs in the bottom of
the crock If any one part is left
out, the cross-section is incomplete,
and Shadows Slant North" in
cludes them all. That is why it is
a true mirror of life.
/ Tncidan+a11v the hoot1eppeT iS the