Most Popular Books by Erskine Caldwell

Seventeen short stories which have appeared in previous volumes or magazines.

Two complete novels and twenty short stories.

"It would take more than the genius of Erskine Caldwell to rescue this from the lime. It is being labelled a city slum "Tobacco Road" -- but, for my money, it lacks the redeeming milk of human kindness and the humor that might have put it in that category. In the abstract, one can deplore the possibility of a society which permits such fetid city cesspools as Poor Boy; but as one reads of the down-and-outors who were washed up when the boom of the war passed them by, Caldwell gives one little cause to feel that such poor flotsam of humanity can ever find justification for survival.....Spence Douthit futilely longs for the hills he left, but cannot translate his homesickness into action; his war job and earnings gone, he lives on the edge of extinction, saved by the meagre handouts of Libby, the older daughter, who alone has the guts to reach beyond the slime. His wife, the whining, sodden Maud; Navi, who at 13 has found her niche in a whorehouse; his pal, Spence, with his growing swarm of potential prostitutes; the quarrelsome next-door-neighbors -- form the cast for an experiment in social welfare which is deliberately caricatured out of recognition."--Kirkus.

In this story of the deterioration and decadence among the down-and-out aristocracy of the South, Lucyanne struggles in her marriage to abusive, philandering Grady Dunbar.

Personal experiences of Caldwell with guerrilla warfare in the Soviet Union.

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.

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.

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.

Contributed for benefit auction for Fund for Editions of American Authors.

" Sur la première marche de la véranda, Buck était assis, la tête penchée sur la poitrine. Le fusil était toujours par terre, là où il l'avait laissé tomber. Ty Ty fit un tour complet pour éviter de le voir. - Du sang sur ma terre ! murmurait-il. Devant lui, la ferme s'étendait, désolée. Les tas de sable jaune et d'argile rouge, séparés par les grands cratères rouges, le sol rouge, inculte - la terre semblait désolée. Ty Ty, à l'ombre du chêne, se sentait complètement exténué. Il n'avait plus de force dans les muscles quand il pensait à l'or enfoui dans la terre, sous sa ferme. Il ne savait pas où se trouvait l'or et il ne savait pas comment il le pourrait extraire, maintenant que ses forces l'avaient abandonné. "