New Releases by Erskine Caldwell

Three powerful novels of racism, lust, and poverty in the rural South by a controversial national bestselling author. Bigotry, poverty, social injustice, and sexual squalor in the Deep South—hallmarks of one of the most daring and phenomenally popular bestselling novelists of the twentieth-century. Here, in one volume, are three of his best-known works. “None of [his] characters would be caught dead in a novel by John Steinbeck, Carson McCullers, or Eudora Welty” (The Daily Beast). Tobacco Road: The Great Depression compromises the morals of a poor farming family in Georgia. This classic, a Modern Library 100 Best Novels selection, was adapted for the stage in 1933 and made into a 1941 film directed by John Ford. God’s Little Acre: Desperation takes its toll on a deluded Southern farmer obsessed with sex, violence, and the promise of gold. Banned in Boston, censored in Georgia, and prosecuted by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, this international bestseller was adapted into a film in 1958. A Place Called Estherville: In the pre-civil-rights-era South, a biracial brother and sister move to a small segregated town to care for their aunt, only to be subjected to systematic racism, sexual violence, and prejudice. “What William Faulkner implies, Erskine Caldwell records,” said the Chicago Tribune of the author who earned his reputation by writing about sex, racism, and religious hypocrisy when no one else was. Caldwell remains one of the most widely translated American authors of all time. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erskine Caldwell including rare photos and never-before-seen documents courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library.

Originally published in 1932, Caldwell''s novel told the story of the Lester family, poor Georgia sharecroppers who no longer farmed the land, but lived by whatever means possible. Caldwell''s picture of the rural South challenged notions of the dignified and polite Antebellum South and depicted an image that was grotesque, violent, and morally bankrupt. Southern readers immediately found Caldwell''s novel needlessly exaggerated and offensive, while Northern critics read his story as an indictment upon a failed Southern economic system in dire need of reform.

A Georgia dirt farmer believes there is gold on his land, leading him and his sons to spend fifteen years digging holes all over the family farm.

Con una voz americana verdadera, Caldwell presenta una visión ardiente de las trágicas luchas de un hermano y hermana negros tratando de sobrevivir al racismo y la sexualidad perversa de sus empleadores brutales en el sur de los estados unidos.

Through brilliant paragraphs, Erskine Caldwell refines language to the extreme in order to produce a hopeless picture of the search for happiness, achieving a masterpiece that explores new modes of expression and means of narration. Halfway between a novel and poetic prose, as tender as it is overwhelming, this story chronicles the wanderings of the vagabond Alan Kent, someone whose roots are the land itself, through an indifferent world. Above all else, however, this story is a chronicle of the harsh existence in the deep South during the years of the Great Depression. A través de fulgurantes párrafos, Erskine Caldwell depura el lenguaje hasta el extremo para producir una visión desesperanzada de la búsqueda de la felicidad, logrando una obra maestra que explora nuevos modelos expresivos y formas de narrar. A medio camino entre la novela y la prosa poética, tanto tierna como sobrecogedora, esta historia relata los recorridos del vagabundo Alan Kent, alguien cuyas raíces son la tierra misma, en un mundo indiferente. Más que nada, sin embargo, esta historia es la crónica de la dura existencia en el profundo Sur durante los años de la Gran Depresión.

Unsentimentally realistic, this classic novel is a reflection of the effects of poverty on tenant farmers in the South during the Great Depression. It focuses on the Lester family, former cotton farmers who continue to live on their ancestors’ plantation even though it has long ceased to be prosperous. Jeeter and Ada Lester have 17 children, two of whom still live at home: Ellie May, their only unmarried daughter who has a cleft lip, and Dude, their youngest son who is mentally handicapped. The family’s antics, while at times vile and perverse, depict the racism and moral ambiguity that existed among some impoverished Southerners at that time and represent Erskine Caldwell’s critique of the failed economic system and its consequences. Realista sin ser sentimental, esta novela clásica es una reflexión de los efectos de la pobreza en los aparceros en el sur durante la Gran Depresión. Se enfoca en la familia Lester, antiguos agricultores de algodón que siguen viviendo en la plantación de sus antepasados, a pesar de que ésta desde hace tiempo dejó de ser próspera. Jeeter y Ada Lester tienen 17 hijos, dos de los cuales todavía viven en casa: Ellie May, su única hija soltera que tiene un labio leporino, y Dude, su hijo menor que tiene deficiencia mental. Las travesuras de la familia, aunque a veces viles y perversas, muestran el racismo y la ambigüedad moral que existía entre algunos sureños empobrecidos en ese momento y representan la crítica de Erskine Caldwell del sistema económico reprobado y sus consecuencias.

DIVDIVIn this travelogue and memoir, groundbreaking novelist Erskine Caldwell looks back at a life lived in the troubled South /divDIV /divDIVFive decades removed from his own Southern childhood, novelist Erskine Caldwell sets out on a journey to find an old friend—a friend lost to him through the culture of segregation. As Caldwell follows a trail through Georgia, South Carolina, and much of the Deep South in search of his black childhood friend Bisco, his interviews with white and black Americans expose a range of attitudes that are tragic, if not surprising./divDIV /divDIVPublished first in the mid-1960s just as the South was undergoing a radical transformation by freedom marches and sit-ins, In Search of Bisco offers a heartfelt account of the civil rights movement by one of the region’s fiercest critics and most prominent sons./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Erskine Caldwell including rare photos and never-before-seen documents courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library./div/div

DIVDIVFourteen stories that follow a young boy coming of age in a dysfunctional family in the rural South /div DIVMeet William Stroop, a young son of the South whose charming voice and mordant observations of family and culture make him one of American literature’s most memorable narrators. In these fourteen interwoven stories, William details the high (and low) points of his family history, focusing particularly on his lazy, scheming father, Morris, his put-upon mother, Martha, and his confidante, Handsome Brown, a young black farmhand. As Morris matches wits with strangers and neighbors alike in constant pursuit of get-rich-quick plans, Martha tries to hold the family together without the aid of any discernable income./divDIV /divDIVTold with the polish and moral resonance of fables, Georgia Boy captures the beauty and tragedy of life in the rural South during the twentieth century./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Erskine Caldwell including rare photos and never-before-seen documents courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library./div/div

DIVDIVA wandering preacher who gambles and chases women exposes the hypocrisies of a small Southern town/divDIV /divDIVWhen preacher Semon Dye moves into the tiny Georgia town of Rocky Comfort, many of its citizens welcome him. After all, the only church in town is being used to store fertilizer. But sermons aren’t the first thing on the mind of the tall, magnetic, and utterly dissolute man. Other callings take priority: women, whiskey, gambling, and hiding from the law. Even as he seduces wives, cheats at cards, and provokes old feuds, Dye manages to cast a dark spell over all the people in Rocky Comfort./divDIV /divDIVJourneyman is a wicked send-up of religious fervor by an American master of dark political satire./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Erskine Caldwell including rare photos and never-before-seen documents courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library./div/div

Portrays the lynching of Sonny Clark through the eyes of Sheriff Jeff McCurtain, who did nothing to disperse an angry mob; Harvey Glenn, who turned Clark in; and Katy Barlow, who withdrew a false charge of rape only after Clark was dead

This collection of ninety-six stories was first published in 1953 and presents the best of Erskine Caldwell''s short fiction from his most productive period of work. Included is "Crown-Fire," which James Dickey praised as "the best story in the language," and such personal favorites of Caldwell as "Country Full of Swedes," "The Windfall," "Horse Thief," "Yellow Girl," and "Kneel to the Rising Sun."

In this candid view of the hardships and rewards of the writer''s life, Erskine Caldwell recalls his first thirty years as a writer, with special emphasis on his long and hard apprenticeship before he emerged as one of the most widely read and controversial authors of his time. All the while conveying the enormous amount of drive and dedication with which he pursued his calling, Caldwell tells of his struggles to find his own voice, his travels, and his various jobs, which ranged from backbreaking manual labor to much sought-after positions in radio, film, and journalism. Including a self-interview, Call It Experience offers a wealth of insights into Caldwell''s imagination and his writing habits, as well as his views on critics and reviewers, publishers, and booksellers. It is a source of information and inspiration to aspiring writers.

In the middle years of the Great Depression, Erskine Caldwell and photographer Margaret Bourke-White spent eighteen months traveling across the back roads of the Deep South--from South Carolina to Arkansas--to document the living conditions of the sharecropper. Their collaboration resulted in You Have Seen Their Faces, a graphic portrayal of America''s desperately poor rural underclass. First published in 1937, it is a classic comparable to Jacob Riis''s How the Other Half Lives, and James Agee and Walker Evans''s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which it preceded by more than three years. Caldwell lets the poor speak for themselves. Supported by his commentary, they tell how the tenant system exploited whites and blacks alike and fostered animosity between them. Bourke-White, who sometimes waited hours for the right moment, captures her subjects in the shacks where they lived, the depleted fields where they plowed, and the churches where they worshipped.

Alan Kent is a wanderer, a seeker. Driven by, or fleeing from, unnamed forces, he struggles against the hardening effects of a brutal and indifferent world. In a series of episodes, Erskine Caldwell tells the semiautobiographical story of Kent''s childhood, roving early manhood, and transformation into an artist. The episodes, which range from brief, graphic sketches to one-sentence impressions, are filled with elemental images of light and darkness, blood and water, earth and sky.

The author''s anecdotes, memories, interviews, and observations offer a portrayal of the religious life of the South and how southern protestantism fared during the social upheaval of the mid-1960s

Boxx''s younger, daughter, does he finally free himself from the clutches of this demonic, madwoman. Yet freedom proves elusive, for by the end of this surreal, phantasmagoric adventure, Blondy and everyone he cares for have come to a bloody end.

Conversations with Erskine Caldwell contains thirty-two interviews with this major writer, who during his long career enjoyed both the celebrity and the controversy that his books generated. These collected interviews include what is apparently his first, given in 1929 before the publication of The Bastard, to one of the very last, given only weeks before his death in April 1987. Caldwell was a lifelong outspoken opponent of censorship and an early advocate of racial equality. His ideas were reflected in a number of important interviews and portraits, often in newspapers or small journals not easily obtained today. In his later years he became a kind of elder statesman, celebrated as the last of that extraordinary generation of American writers which included Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Wolfe, and Steinbeck and which changed the face of American literature. The interviews in this collection reveal Caldwell''s attitudes toward the profession of writing. He describes his early years of struggle, his determination to prove himself as a writer, and his tremendous success as the author of Tobacco Road and God''s Little Acre, two American classics. He explains his attitude toward the South and his desire to bring about social reform through his writings. He is also candid about his own personal trials, his doubts and beliefs, and the state of his critical reputation.

The celebrated novelist discusses his life and career, including his four marriages, his struggles to get his work accepted by a publisher, and the attempts to ban his work.