Erskine Caldwell Reconsidered

Since the 1930s, Erskine Caldwell's writings have provoked laughter and pathos, curiosity and disbelief. His perplexing characters, comically motivated only by their instincts for survival, allowed Caldwell to illustrate the duality of human nature as he explored the social issues of his times in such celebrated novels as Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre. Behind Caldwell's social protest and his comic characters lay a man whose life imitated art. A rural southerner who later moved among the movie industry's famous and powerful, Caldwell led a life as compelling as any of his fiction. As Harvey Klevar weaves the threads of this life into the cultural tapestry of the times, he explores the myriad of personal forces and world events that contributed in the 1930s to Caldwell's popular acclaim and later to his descent from literary grace. A recluse in both his personal life and in his public writing, Caldwell offered little direction to those seeking clues to his literary intentions. Klevar argues that Caldwell should have shared more in the accolades heaped upon his contemporaries Faulkner, Hemingway, and Steinbeck; but ultimately his personal idiosyncrasies encouraged his underestimation by the literary establishment. Proving that a careful reappraisal of Caldwell's life lends critical insight into his writings and career, Klevar's work unveils an inventive artist who skillfully combined social phenomena with personal experience to offer unique insights into the telling of the human story.

Erskine Caldwell has been compared to literary giants like Faulkner and Hemingway, yet he has also been reviled as peddler of pop trash. Was he a genius, or just a shooting star whose brilliance faded long before he stopped writing? Caldwell began his career in the late 1920s and gained fame for revealing the gritty backwoods South in novels such as his seminal Tobacco Road. He wrote prolifically, sometimes as much as a book a year. As the editor of this book maintains, perhaps anyone who wrote so much would inevitably stumble. These 12 essays explore a variety of issues. They discuss Caldwell as humorist, social commentator, modernist, and revolutionary novelist. They examine his themes and tropes (political images, social injustice, the environment, ideological struggles) and his use of artistic devices (short stories, cubist strategies, repetition). A generous bibliography includes not only books on Caldwell but also chapters and forewords, journal articles, essays, news items and obituaries. The reader is encouraged to look at Caldwell with fresh eyes, to press beyond his controversial image, and to compare his works, especially his early ones, to those of any of the top names in literature.

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."

Most critics have considered Caldwell to be only a minor southern writer, often associating him with his worst writing. Yet Saul Bellow suggested he deserved the Nobel Prize, and William Faulkner once characterized him as one of the five best writers of his time, alongside himself, Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos.

Realistic writers seek to render accurate representations of the world, and their novels contain authentic details and descriptions of their characters and settings. Like Realistic authors, Naturalistic ones similarly try to portray the world accurately, but they tend to depict the darker side of life. Realism was born in Europe in the nineteenth century and soon became popular in the United States, while Naturalism became prominent at the beginning of the twentieth century. Both traditions have continued in one form or another to the present day, and Realistic and Naturalistic novelists include some of America's most significant authors, such as Sherwood Anderson, Saul Bellow, Ambrose Bierce, Willa Cather, Theodore Dreiser, Ralph Ellison, and Jack London. This reference includes biographical and critical entries for more than 120 American Naturalistic and Realistic novelists. An introductory essay discusses the history of the Realistic and Naturalistic traditions, points to the difficulty of defining them, and surveys the many authors who have been associated with the two movements. The entries that follow are arranged alphabetically to facilitate use. Each includes basic biographical information and a narrative overview of the writer's educational background, professional career, and published works. The writer's works are briefly discussed in relation to the Realistic and Naturalistic traditions. Entries include primary and secondary bibliographies, and the volume closes with a list of works for further reading.

Author of such classics of 20th-century popular American literature as Tobacco Road (1932) and God's Little Acre (1933), Erskine Caldwell was something of a celebrity nearly all his life. But he was also a serious writer, one whose merits are as considerable as they remain underexplored. In the 1930s, he startled the literary world with his frank portrayals of the poor whites of the South. Beginning in the early 1940s, critics grew suspicious that he had exhausted his originality and his talent. In the late 1960s, some scholars began an effort, which continues intermittently today, to reconsider Caldwell's achievement. This collection of reviews, critical essays, and book excerpts provides a chronological portrait of the often contradictory and unfailingly colorful critical response to Caldwell from 1931 to the present. The 57 pieces collected in this volume were chosen to represent all sides and perspectives in the evolving critical opinion of Caldwell's work. The items are grouped in sections representing three chronological periods that encompass the prevailing critical moods concerning his writings: the 1930s, when readers of many persuasions found him promising and held out great hopes for his development; 1940 to 1968, when increasing critical scrutiny led to his dismissal as a writer of significance; and 1969 to the present, when there have been several substantial efforts to reconsider Caldwell's achievement. An introductory essay argues that Caldwell remains largely absent from our critical consciousness today because of a prevailing willingness among academics to rely on largely negative received opinions about his books in place of primary experience with them. The introduction is followed by a chronology, and the volume concludes with an extensive selected bibliography.

Author of such classics of 20th-century popular American literature as Tobacco Road (1932) and God's Little Acre (1933), Erskine Caldwell was something of a celebrity nearly all his life. But he was also a serious writer, one whose merits are as considerable as they remain underexplored. In the 1930s, he startled the literary world with his frank portrayals of the poor whites of the South. Beginning in the early 1940s, critics grew suspicious that he had exhausted his originality and his talent. In the late 1960s, some scholars began an effort, which continues intermittently today, to reconsider Caldwell's achievement. This collection of reviews, critical essays, and book excerpts provides a chronological portrait of the often contradictory and unfailingly colorful critical response to Caldwell from 1931 to the present. The 57 pieces collected in this volume were chosen to represent all sides and perspectives in the evolving critical opinion of Caldwell's work. The items are grouped in sections representing three chronological periods that encompass the prevailing critical moods concerning his writings: the 1930s, when readers of many persuasions found him promising and held out great hopes for his development; 1940 to 1968, when increasing critical scrutiny led to his dismissal as a writer of significance; and 1969 to the present, when there have been several substantial efforts to reconsider Caldwell's achievement. An introductory essay argues that Caldwell remains largely absent from our critical consciousness today because of a prevailing willingness among academics to rely on largely negative received opinions about his books in place of primary experience with them. The introduction is followed by a chronology, and the volume concludes with an extensive selected bibliography.