New Releases by Erskine Caldwell

Originally published in 1932, Caldwell's novel told the story of the Lester family, poor Georgia sharecroppers who no longer farmed the land, but lived by whatever means possible. Caldwell's picture of the rural South challenged notions of the dignified and polite Antebellum South and depicted an image that was grotesque, violent, and morally bankrupt. Southern readers immediately found Caldwell's novel needlessly exaggerated and offensive, while Northern critics read his story as an indictment upon a failed Southern economic system in dire need of reform.

Martha Stroup y su hijo William casi han terminado la colada cuando un ruido como de una explosión amenaza con derribar la casa. Es "Pa" con su última adquisición: una máquina de embalar papel que los sacará de pobres de la noche a la mañana. En pos del sueño americano que nunca llega, "Pa" puede endeudarse hasta el cuello. O hurtar a los vecinos toda la chatarra que venderá en una feria. O maltratar a Handsome, el huérfano negro que ayuda en las tareas de la casa. Y como "Pa", además de simpático y holgazán, es un mujeriego, dejará que una troupe de circo desvalije la casa con tal de pasar media hora con la Reina de los Gitanos en el cobertizo, sometido a sus encantos y encantaciones. Y entrará en el juego de una vendedora ambulante de corbatas, que le sacará sus últimos cinco dólares con falsas promesas amorosas.Hasta que Martha Stroup, harta de él y sus andanzas, le sirve una cena... inolvidable.

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.

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.

Short stories about the twentieth-century South by the national bestselling author of Tobacco Road. Author of some of the most widely banned fiction of the twentieth century, Erskine Caldwell had a talent for striking a nerve. In this collection of nearly one hundred stories, the full depth and scope of his talent is on display, including his trademark biting satire as well as his skill at rendering deeply moving portraits of his native South. In a career that spanned over six decades, Caldwell produced stories that serve to document a changing society, from the dehumanizing trials of the Great Depression through the transformative battle to desegregate the South. Taken together, his short fiction reveals a voice that remains essential for readers hoping to understand the American experience. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erskine Caldwell including rare photos and never-before-seen documents courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library.

A small Southern town lynches a falsely accused man in "some of the most . . . human and terrifying pages Caldwell has written" (Richard Wright, author of Native Son). When word spreads through Julie County that Sonny Clark, a black man, has assaulted Katy Barlow, a white woman, the man's fate is sealed. With frightening speed, authorities and an outraged mob align to apprehend Clark and condemn him without trial. By the time Barlow confesses that no crime occurred, it is too late. Told from the multiple perspectives of victim and victimizers as well as passive onlookers, Trouble in July depicts in harrowing detail the tragic ignorance of individuals who fail to understand their roles in a hateful miscarriage of justice. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erskine Caldwell including rare photos and never-before-seen documents courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library.

With a true American voice, Caldwell presents a searing view of the tragic struggles of a black brother and sister in their attempt to survive the racism and perverse sexuality of their brutal Southern employers.

In 1965, Erskine Caldwell sets out across the South to find his black boyhood friend, Bisco, whom he has not seen in 50 years. Eighteen of those conversations with folks from South Carolina to Arkansas make up this book.

In the middle years of the Great Depression, Erskine Caldwell and photographer Margaret Bourke-White spent eighteen months traveling across the back roads of the Deep South--from South Carolina to Arkansas--to document the living conditions of the sharecropper. Their collaboration resulted in You Have Seen Their Faces, a graphic portrayal of America's desperately poor rural underclass. First published in 1937, it is a classic comparable to Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives, and James Agee and Walker Evans's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which it preceded by more than three years. Caldwell lets the poor speak for themselves. Supported by his commentary, they tell how the tenant system exploited whites and blacks alike and fostered animosity between them. Bourke-White, who sometimes waited hours for the right moment, captures her subjects in the shacks where they lived, the depleted fields where they plowed, and the churches where they worshipped.

Boxx's younger, daughter, does he finally free himself from the clutches of this demonic, madwoman. Yet freedom proves elusive, for by the end of this surreal, phantasmagoric adventure, Blondy and everyone he cares for have come to a bloody end.

Conversations with Erskine Caldwell contains thirty-two interviews with this major writer, who during his long career enjoyed both the celebrity and the controversy that his books generated. These collected interviews include what is apparently his first, given in 1929 before the publication of The Bastard, to one of the very last, given only weeks before his death in April 1987. Caldwell was a lifelong outspoken opponent of censorship and an early advocate of racial equality. His ideas were reflected in a number of important interviews and portraits, often in newspapers or small journals not easily obtained today. In his later years he became a kind of elder statesman, celebrated as the last of that extraordinary generation of American writers which included Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Wolfe, and Steinbeck and which changed the face of American literature. The interviews in this collection reveal Caldwell's attitudes toward the profession of writing. He describes his early years of struggle, his determination to prove himself as a writer, and his tremendous success as the author of Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre, two American classics. He explains his attitude toward the South and his desire to bring about social reform through his writings. He is also candid about his own personal trials, his doubts and beliefs, and the state of his critical reputation.

" 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. "

In this appealing collection of fourteen interrelated stories, twelve-year-old William Stroup recounts the ludicrous predicaments and often self-imposed hardships his family endures. Playing on the tension between his hardworking, sensible mother and his disarmingly likable but shiftless and philandering father, William tells of Pa's flirtation with a widow, his swapping match with a band of gypsies, his battle of wits with a traveling silk-tie saleswoman, and his get-rich-quick schemes based on selling Ma's old love letters and collecting scrap iron.

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