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A Harvest of Southern Realism

1978; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 7; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/chl.0.0402

1543-3374

William H. Green,

American Literature and Culture

A Harvest of Southern Realism William H. Green (bio) Me Too, by Vera and Bill Cleaver. New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1973. $6.95. The Whys and Wherefores of Littabelle Lee, by Vera and Bill Cleaver. New York: Atheneum, 1975. $6.95. Doodle and the Go-Cart, by Robert Burch. New York: Viking Press, 1972. $4.75. Hut School and the Wartime Home-Front Heroes, by Robert Burch. New York: Viking Press, 1974. $5.95. Two That Were Tough, by Robert Burch. New York: Viking Press, 1976. $6.95. A Taste of Blackberries, by Doris Buchanan Smith. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1973. $3.95. Kick a Stone Home, by Doris Buchanan Smith. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1974. $6.95. Kelly's Creek, by Doris Buchanan Smith. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1975. $5.95. The Integration of Mary-Larkin Thornhill, by Ann Waldron. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1975. $6.95. The Golden Shores of Heaven, by Katie Letcher Lyle. New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1976. $6.95. Quincy's Harvest, by Tom H. Forbes. New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1976. $6.95. Return to South Town, by Lorenz Graham. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1976. $6.50. Johnny May, by Robbie Branscum. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1973. $4.95. Weakfoot, by Linda Cline. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1975. $4.95. June the Tiger, by John Fort. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975. $4.95. Pinch, by Larry Callen. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975. $5.95. Cajun Night Before Christmas, by "Trosclair." Edited by Howard Jacobs. Illustrated by James Rice. Gretna, La.: Pelican, 1973. $4.95. Gaston the Green-Nosed Alligator, written and illustrated by James Rice. Gretna, La.: Pelican, 1974. $4.95. Cajun Columbus, by Alice Durio. Illustrated by James Rice. Gretna, La.: Pelican, 1975. Into the 1970's Vera and Bill Cleaver, Robert Burch, and (most recently) Doris Buchanan Smith have established themselves in severed books as practitioners of the realistic novel with a Southern exposure. And efforts by other children's authors—ranging widely in quality—reflect no pause in literary exploration of Southeastern subjects. After the success of Ellen Grae in 1967, the Cleavers produced a rapid sequence of well-written novels about children, usually set in Florida towns or rural mountains. The style of their earlier books, such as Where the Lilies Bloom and I Would Rather Be a Turnip, is brightly lucid, alive with local color and comic details that spring like traps. Me Too and The Whys and Wherefores of Littabelle Lee reflect a shift in style with mixed results, a drift from Salinger (with a dash of Saki) into almost turgidly evoked grotesques which at their best recall Welty. But Me Too is not their best. The story of a lonely girl's failure to communicate with her retarded twin, Me Too, like its protagonist, fails nobly—ruined by its arid subject and indecisive ending. The climax, when a Florida sinkhole yawns under her feet, is a creaking deus ex machina, timed as exactly as a Jules Verne volcano, and as implausibly. With its grandiose style and narrowly focused point of view, Me Too is character-starved and loaded with tissues of allegory which come unstuck from realism. Littabelle Lee is much better. The family of Ozarks grotesques agrees with the erratic plot and lyrical style. With a resourceful teenage heroine leading her family through a winter, maturing under stress, and accepting the reality of adult sexual needs, the book is a rococo redaction of Where the Lilies Bloom, a vindication of the later Cleaver style. But its artistic density may overwhelm young readers. Word magic is here, but are the children listening? Robert Burch is more reliable. Writing from his childhood home in Fayette County, just south of Atlanta, he is a master of the regional "problem" novel. The problems are perennial: sickness, death, poverty, disgrace, old age, and war, reflected in credible characters without morbidity, escapism, or preaching. And under Burch's hand problems evolve toward unexpected but satisfying [End Page 256] conclusions. In Doodle and the Go-Cart, the son of a marginal farmer dreams of buying a go-cart. With and without his...