Friday, June 24, 2016

Tobacco Road



Tobacco Road
by Erskine Caldwell
read: 2016
Modern Library #91, Guardian 1000 Novels

Erskine Caldwell's Tobacco Road has perhaps the most visceral descriptions of poverty I have ever read. The characters wear tattered clothing, live in dilapidated houses on infertile land, and battle the constant threat of starvation. They have no concept of money and little regard for human life, as evidenced by Dude's casual attitude towards committing two vehicular homicides. They are in part victims of the economic conditions of the times, but Caldwell's portrayal doesn't absolve them of their sins, either: theft, laziness, ignorance, and apathy.

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