Erskine Caldwell

The Journey from Tobacco Road

by Dan B. Miller

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1995. Gray boards with black spine. Dust jacket. 459 pages.

Caldwell is one of those authors from the "pulp era" whose appeal is all but gone today. But he was enormously popular in the 40's and 50's; just browse the Penguin and Signet sections of this web site to see how much. His fame was shadowed from two directions: the southern states didn't really appreciate his brutally honest depiction of the lifestyle among the south's poor, and many groups tried to have his books banned on moral grounds. He has the distinction of having the only Signet book declared obscene: God's Little Acre (Caldwell took the case to court and won).

Frankly, Caldwell's life sounds a lot like that of one of his characters: tough childhood, married four times, not very well liked by his children. Still, a man with such prolific and consistently popular writing must have a place in our reference library. Miller's book is thorough and precise. He handles the task very well.