Hitting Close to Home: A Review of “Tobacco Road” by Erskine Caldwell

Introduction

You may be familiar with the saying “truth hurts.” Well, Erskine Caldwell’s novel Tobacco Road packs a wallop of blunt, unadorned truth about poverty in the American South during the Great Depression. As I turned the pages, the story hit close to home even though it was published over 80 years ago.

Originally released in 1932, Tobacco Road stirred up loads of controversy and was even banned in some places for the way Caldwell peeled back the layers on a destitute Georgia family, exposing their day-to-day struggles and immoral behaviors without restraint.

Some key questions Caldwell seems to pose in this tragic yet eye-opening story:

• Is extreme hardship an excuse for reprehensible conduct?
• Can we judge people whose entire existence revolves around fulfilling basic needs like food, water and shelter?
• What responsibility do governments and society have in ameliorating severe poverty?

By the end, you may just find yourself re-evaluating long held notions around morality, charity, and the human condition itself.

Intrigued yet horrified, I knew I needed to read this infamous book. Here’s my take on the plot, characters, Caldwell’s style, and why Tobacco Road remains relevant after all this time.

You can find Tobacco Road by author Erskine Caldwell on your favorite bookstore, including Amazon.com and Amazon UK.

About author Erskine Caldwell

Erskine Caldwell was an American author known for his vivid depictions of poverty and racism in the American South during the early 20th century. Born in 1903 in White Oak, Georgia, Caldwell came of age during a turbulent time in the South when Jim Crow laws and racial segregation were the norm.

Though Caldwell grew up relatively privileged on his grandfather’s plantation, he became disturbed by the rampant racism and economic struggles he witnessed African Americans enduring in the rural South. These experiences shaped his progressive political views and deeply informed his literary works examining injustice, hardship, and resilience.

Caldwell is considered a pioneering Southern Gothic and social realist writer, using candor and humor to capture multi-dimensional characters. His best-known and most controversial work is the 1932 novel Tobacco Road, which follows the exploits of a poor white Georgia family eking out a harsh existence by a cotton field. Seen as profane by some at the time, the book exposed the ugly underbelly of the South’s economic system where both blacks and poor whites suffered degradation and abuse.

While Tobacco Road established his reputation, Caldwell wrote prolifically during his career, publishing over 25 novels as well as dozens of short stories, essays, and memoirs focused on the marginalized experience in America. Some of his other iconic works include God’s Little Acre in 1933, chronicling the troubles of a Southern family struggling with poverty and incest, and Trouble in July in 1940, examining racial tensions arising from a lynching.

Caldwell’s writing style has often been compared to contemporaries like William Faulkner and Richard Wright for his modernist, occasionally sensational aesthetic combined with muckraking spirit. He injected existential themes into Southern fiction, conveying both the anguish and nobility of common people weathering hard times. His avant-garde approach to taboo topics like sexuality, violence, and inequality in the South also paved the way for later postmodern authors like Flannery O’Conner and Cormac McCarthy.

Though Caldwell’s reputation faded post-World War II, recent decades have seen renewed interest in his transgressive catalog and profound influence. His advocacy for the downtrodden through raw, moving narratives about the exploitation of the Southern underclass stands as some of the most important social commentary in early 20th century American literature. Erskine Caldwell remains an under-appreciated voice in the pantheon of great US writers giving voice to the struggles of the oppressed and forgotten.

The Plot

The story follows the exploits of Jeeter Lester and his family of 12 who reside in a tumbled down shack set among Georgia’s tobacco fields.

Right from the start, Caldwell presents us with a family that constantly balaces on the knife edge of starvation. They have scarcely enough to eat and wear through the course of their hand-to-mouth existence. And the circumstances only seem to go downhill for the Lesters from there.

Throughout the novel, Caldwell reveals how the Lesters resort to theft, prostitution, violence and deception in attempts to ease their poverty.

As far as plot goes, there are no neat resolutions here. Readers witness the family’s gradual physical and moral disintegration over the years brought on by continual destitution and misfortune.

It’s a downward spiral with an end as inevitable as it is heartbreaking.

Some critcs argue that not much really “happens” in Tobacco Road plot-wise. But I disagree. In very simple terms, Caldwell puts poverty itself on display and dissects its capacity to corrupt people’s character when they can see no way out.

The Characters

At the center sits Jeeter Lester, an emaciated and worn out patriarch who still clings to his status as head of the household.

Jolly and congenial yet defeated in spirit, Jeeter floats hour to hour trying unsuccessfully to hatch plans to feed his children.

His bony wife Ada exists as mere background, worn down from bearing so many children she could not afford to raise. Of all the characters, readers get to know Ada the least.

The author devotes more attention to the Lesters’ daughter Pearl, approaching marriageable age but unlikely to find any suitor willing to pay for such a sickly bride.

Pearl’s rare moments of vitality come only when she contemplates leaving behind her impoverished existence.

The young men Ellie May and Dude offer intrigue, both physical and psychological misfits.

Ellie May’s cleft palate gives her a witchlike countenance while Dude’s mental slowness makes him unable to contribute income to the family.

Perhaps the most fascinating family member remains the brash, confrontational daughter Sister Bessie.

Repeatedly rendered pregnant by untraceable men, Sister Bessie earns disdain even from her own parents for her promiscuity.

Yet she clings fiercely to her sexuality as if it offers her sole purpose and chance atcontrol in a situation where she otherwise has none.

Caldwell’s characters often repulse but he renders them three dimensional enough that glimmers of humanity emerge if you gaze closely.

In the Lesters, he succeeds most in revealing the unpredictability of human response when dignity gets stripped away piece by piece.

Caldwell’s Signature Literary Style

More than generating attachment to characters, Caldwell wants readers to observe, absorb, and awaken to the spectacle of poverty he constructs. Like touring a museum exhibit.

To achieve this, Caldwell employs a detached, cinematic style relying heavily on dialect, imagery and externals.

You won’t find pages of internal monologue or swirling emotional impressionism here. Instead Caldwell gives you sparse but vivid snapshots of the Lesters’ life, trusting readers to connect the dots.

The dialect of the characters rings so authentic, you hear distinct southern accents in your head as you go along. And Caldwell expertly reproduces the regional vernacular in all its glory, humor and ugliness.

His camera lens scans unflinchingly over graphic depictions of the Lesters’ ragged existence, zeroing in on rotten corn, crumbling walls, muddy backsides and infestations of lice as if such degradation proves ubiquitous.

You grow familiar with the ache of hunger, the smell of unwashed bodies, the desperation behind stealing beets piecemeal from a field because nothing else got left to eat.

And the imagery can get almost too real, too uncomfortable. But it seems intended to produce visceral reactions.

Some critcs at the time of publication accused Caldwell of sensationalism and cheap theatrics by training his spotlight so insistently on all the gruesome poverty porn.

But as off putting as the imagery appears, the piles of accurate detail embed you inside the circumstances and minds of the downtrodden Lesters.

For what it’s worth, I think Caldwell made the right call in his blunt approach even if it renders for an emotionally difficult read.

Why Tobacco Road Still Matters

Some may wonder whether Tobacco Road carries any relevance under modern conditions. After all, government assistance programs got implemented since the Great Depression era setting at least a partial safety net.

To this I respond yes…and no.

While acute, widespread poverty may not rage in quite the same way now, its persistence can still corrode self worth and mental stability. Caldwell’s message around that rings true today even for those not at the absolute rock bottom.

Additionally, his peek into how those plagued by hardship can drift into alternative morality and loose social bonds proves insightful and compelling.

It made me rethink and expand philosophies on ethics and choice. His characters’ cringeworthy deeds become understandable, if not defensible, within context of their perpetual life crisis.

In the end, Tobacco Road leaves readers with more complex views of poverty, perhaps mixed with both enhanced compassion and queasy caution.

Rather than moralizing, Caldwell explores psychological cause and effect. His detached style avoids direct finger pointing, leaving you to come to your own conclusions about accountability and Fate.

Some books one enjoys. But others prove valuable to read even when the medicine goes down bitter. Tobacco Road falls firmly in the latter.

The Verdict

Tobacco Road leaves a lasting imprint difficult to shake off. From start to finish, the raw realities of poverty get laid bare and they chafe.

It took fortitude for me to slog through this uncompromising but eye-opening narrative. The regional prose makes for tough reading in places and the inertia of the plot mirrors the Lesters’ dead end existence.

But in the end, I’m glad I stuck with it for the perspective gained. The novel sends an arresting message about social deprivation delivered through unforgettable characters ensnared by hardship.

My takeaway? If you seek comfort reads or tidy resolutions, look elsewhere. But a few days spent walking in the Lesters’ tattered shoes may alter what you thought you knew about want and human nature.

Ultimately, Tobacco Road rabbles and disturbs as only the most memorable yet controversial classics can. Perhaps that was Caldwell’s intention all along. Unsettling masterpiece.

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Readers Also Enjoyed

• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck – Impoverished farmers driven off their land by the Dust Bowl journey to California in search of work and dignity during the Great Depression. Their will and values get tested along the way.
• 1984 by George Orwell – In a dystopian future Britain, a government worker grows skeptical of the ruling regime as an underground resistance movement takes shape questioning freedom and facts.
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee – A lawyer in Depression era Alabama defends a black man accused of rape in a trial that exposes the racial prejudices embedded in the justice system and society.
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck – Two migrant workers dream of owning their own farm during the Great Depression. Their plans get tragically derailed, revealing how the American Dream fails to match reality.
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker – An abused and oppressed African-American woman finds her self-worth through the help of two unusual friends.

FAQs

What inspired Erskine Caldwell to write Tobacco Road?

Tobacco Road was inspired by Caldwell’s time living in the American South during the Great Depression. As a writer embedded with poor working-class families, he witnessed firsthand the economic devastation that left many destitute and starving. The novel sheds light on crushing poverty and its emotional toll in an unflinchingly raw manner.

What style of writing is Tobacco Road?

Tobacco Road falls firmly into the Southern Gothic genre. This style uses Gothic elements like deterioration and grotesquerie to highlight flaws in the American South. The novel employs unsettling scenarios and abrasive dialects to depict the Depression’s impact on Georgia farmers and challenge romanticized visions of the South.

Why was Tobacco Road so controversial?

Tobacco Road generated controversy for its gritty depiction of stark poverty and what some viewed as salacious or stereotypical characters. The frank display of sexuality and Caldwell’s refusal to sugarcoat struggling Southern lower classes led to censorship efforts in the 1930s. The book expands perspectives on the range of Depression-era experiences.

How did Tobacco Road boost Erskine Caldwell’s career?

Despite the backlash from some corners, the success of Tobacco Road catapulted Caldwell’s career. The novel was a shocking bestseller, sales further boosted by theater adaptions that brought Caldwell’s vision to broader audiences. This cemented his reputation as a risk-taking writer who uses jarring portraits of the South to challenge social norms.

What inspired the title Tobacco Road?

The title Tobacco Road establishes the agrarian setting where generations of families try eking out subsistence through cotton farming and tobacco growing amid economic calamity. Road names evoking tobacco pervaded the Georgia countryside that Caldwell was depicting. The title also hints at consumption and addiction themes in the plot.

How are the Lesters impacted by sharecropping?

As poor tenant farmers, the Lesters practice sharecropping, a system where they farm land owned by others and pay rent with a share of their crops. This leaves the Lesters beholden to landowners and commodities pricing, unable to get firm financial footing. Their sharecropping plight worsens the Lesters’ hunger and nutritional deficiencies.

What religions are depicted in Tobacco Road?

Though Georgia is dominated by devout evangelical Christians, religious practice offers little relief to Tobacco Road characters. Some attempt to emulate faith but still suffer while others have lost spiritual anchor amid daily turmoil. The novel suggests traditional religion fails many poor agrarian souls facing subsistence crises.

How does Pearl’s marriage to Lov Bensey impact her family?

Teenaged Pearl Lester’s marriage to middle-aged widower Lov Bensey initially seems to offer financial stability through a small wedding loan. However, her family’s endless leeching leaves the newlyweds as starved and threadbare as before. The marriage ultimately functions as just another factor chaining the Lesters to cyclical rural poverty.

Why does the plot mostly take place at the Lesters’ farm?

Caldwell employed the Lesters’ dilapidated farm as the central setting to vividly articulate their impoverishment. The disintegrating cottage with boarded windows poignantly signifies the family’s regression amid agricultural depression, contrasting quaint idealized visions of Southern homesteads. It encapsulates economic and emotional decay.

How does the ending suggest cycles of poverty?

As daughter Ellie May takes over the cottage with her new husband, the ending implies history will repeat for another generation trapped in punishing poverty, unable to transcend systemic rural challenges. The cyclical nature offers commentary on policy failures dooming many during the Depression. There are no neatly tied happy endings.