God's Little Acre
The X-rated scenes in this comic portrayal of rural Georgia life probably seem less shocking than they did in 1933 when the book was first published. They may also seem less amusing. While a dirt farmer named Ty Ty Walden spends 15 years digging holes in his fields looking for gold, his hot-headed sons do less digging and more squabbling over women. Add a lascivious brother-in-law who has been laid off from his job in a mill, another brother from the city who shows up to steal his brother's wife, and a promiscuous sister named Darlin' Jill, and the final blowup is hardly surprising. But there are other less predictable surprises as the story veers toward melodrama. With murder and rape following a killing at the mill, it is as if Caldwell flipped a switch from "farce" to "tragedy." This puts the narrator on the spot, even one as skilled as Buck Schirner. Inevitably, Schirner's hilarious hillbilly accent, which sounds so right at the beginning of the book, becomes a near travesty as the final tragedies unfold. Only academic collections need consider.Jo Carr, Sarasota, Fla.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.