Rating: 
Summary: An important book
Review: I tried reading Tobacco Road several times in the past, but could never get past the first few pages. Now, I finally have read the whole thing, and I'm glad I did. This book could be tucked, whole, into the Canterbury Tales: it would fit very well there. If you don't read much, but thought the ATM machine theft sub-plot in the 2002 Ice Cube movie "Barbershop" was hysterical, this whole book is a story like that-- hairbrained ideas spinning horribly out of control. It's really funny on the top, but sad and inevitable underneath. Caldwell breaks with the silliness right in the middle of the book, inserting a chapter that explains the forces that have brought his characters to this particular brink. It's a bit of a change-up, so I suspect many readers skim over it. But the true story, the devastating cultural and economic shifts that occured as the region turned from tobacco to cotton and from agriculture to manufacture is a key part of understanding the South. And if you want to understand and feel hopeful about the future of the rural, agricultural, and disease-stricken Third World, in my opinion, you'd probably better work hard at understanding the emergence of this American region.
Rating: 
Summary: Natural Selection at Work!
Review: I was alternately repulsed by the author's apparent hatred of poor people and horrified to admit that I believe people like this exist. Is it worse to coldly allow such people to starve and abuse each other, or help them persevere and reproduce? A question for the ages - and for Republicans and Democrats to duke out... It would have been noble for Jeeter to keep his feet on the land if only he hadn't been too lazy and ignorant to do anything useful there. Do we need to build more poor houses for people too helpless to look after themselves? Or would / does this just help them perpetuate their gene pool? This question is certainly as valid now as it ever was.
Rating:
Summary: What Is This, Exactly?
Review: If you were to ask me if I liked "Tobacco Road," my answer would be "I guess so.....I think." It's hard to decide whether or not I liked this book because it's hard to decide what exactly this book is. It's a wisp of a thing really, about 150 pages of nothing happening. Yet it's not boring. There are parts of it that I found funny, but they are so grotesque that I'm not sure they're supposed to be funny. I wanted to sympathize with these poor, pathetic people living like animals, yet I didn't, because they so frustratingly refuse to do anything to help themselves. Erskine Caldwell's story involves a couple of days in the life of a dismally poor one-time sharecropper and those members of his family who haven't yet left home, scraping a living out of the dust in Depression-era Georgia. Like I said, not a lot happens in the way of plot until the hurried ending, which feels tacked on by Caldwell at the last minute as if to justify to his readers why they spent their time reading his book. If you thought the Joads of "The Grapes of Wrath" had it bad, wait until you get a load of the Lesters. This family has none of the dignity displayed by Steinbeck's characters, and it's this difference that ultimately makes the Lesters not worth caring about. Jeeter, the family's patriarch, stubborly refuses to leave his land, even though other poor families are finding opportunities and means for providing for their own families in the nearby mill towns. Jeeter justifies his refusal to leave by taking on a martyred air and feigning a noble attachment to the land, but in reality he's victim to an intensely lazy malaise that will prevent him from ever doing anything to help himself. He thinks the children who have left home never to return or even communicate with their parents have acted selfishly and callously (mostly because they refuse to send money home), but who can blame them? I wouldn't ever return home either. I think this book is supposed to be funny; the back cover of the book compares Caldwell to Mark Twain. However, if that's the case, then this book borders on the appalling. Caldwell's tone throughout is snide and nasty--he invites us to laugh at the Lesters and their stupidity. And if we're supposed to be laughing, then one wonders what Caldwell's purpose was in writing this. If we're meant to simply read this book as a comedy, then I'm repelled at the pointlessness of the whole enterprise. I don't truly believe this was Caldwell's sole purpose, yet the book also fails as an indictment of the social institutions responsible for reducing families to this state of destitution. "Tobacco Road" falls into that category of books that you might as well read, since it's held in high esteem by the literary establishment and will take virtually no time to finish. I think you'll be moderately entertained, but I also wouldn't be surprised if you have the the urge to scratch your head when it's all over and wonder what in the world you just sat through.
Rating:
Summary: What Is This, Exactly?
Review: If you were to ask me if I liked "Tobacco Road," my answer would be "I guess so.....I think." It's hard to decide whether or not I liked this book because it's hard to decide what exactly this book is. It's a wisp of a thing really, about 150 pages of nothing happening. Yet it's not boring. There are parts of it that I found funny, but they are so grotesque that I'm not sure they're supposed to be funny. I wanted to sympathize with these poor, pathetic people living like animals, yet I didn't, because they so frustratingly refuse to do anything to help themselves. Erskine Caldwell's story involves a couple of days in the life of a dismally poor one-time sharecropper and those members of his family who haven't yet left home, scraping a living out of the dust in Depression-era Georgia. Like I said, not a lot happens in the way of plot until the hurried ending, which feels tacked on by Caldwell at the last minute as if to justify to his readers why they spent their time reading his book. If you thought the Joads of "The Grapes of Wrath" had it bad, wait until you get a load of the Lesters. This family has none of the dignity displayed by Steinbeck's characters, and it's this difference that ultimately makes the Lesters not worth caring about. Jeeter, the family's patriarch, stubborly refuses to leave his land, even though other poor families are finding opportunities and means for providing for their own families in the nearby mill towns. Jeeter justifies his refusal to leave by taking on a martyred air and feigning a noble attachment to the land, but in reality he's victim to an intensely lazy malaise that will prevent him from ever doing anything to help himself. He thinks the children who have left home never to return or even communicate with their parents have acted selfishly and callously (mostly because they refuse to send money home), but who can blame them? I wouldn't ever return home either. I think this book is supposed to be funny; the back cover of the book compares Caldwell to Mark Twain. However, if that's the case, then this book borders on the appalling. Caldwell's tone throughout is snide and nasty--he invites us to laugh at the Lesters and their stupidity. And if we're supposed to be laughing, then one wonders what Caldwell's purpose was in writing this. If we're meant to simply read this book as a comedy, then I'm repelled at the pointlessness of the whole enterprise. I don't truly believe this was Caldwell's sole purpose, yet the book also fails as an indictment of the social institutions responsible for reducing families to this state of destitution. "Tobacco Road" falls into that category of books that you might as well read, since it's held in high esteem by the literary establishment and will take virtually no time to finish. I think you'll be moderately entertained, but I also wouldn't be surprised if you have the the urge to scratch your head when it's all over and wonder what in the world you just sat through.
Rating: 
Summary: funny and bizarre
Review: in the hills before the beverly hillbillies there were hillbillies. this book tells the story of the mountain folk. there was a movie made in about 1940 based on this book. the movie is hard to find, but closely follows the book one of the characters, dude, or dudeboy, as his father called him was the inspiration for the cartoon character: dewdboy, a modern day, half baked character..that follows in the tradition.. although now employed as a forklift driver for a toiletpaper factory, a lofty position in the day of his ancestors. Great book, I hope the movie is also released soon.
Rating:
Summary: Tobacco Road
Review: In Tobacco Road, Erskine Caldwell tells the humorous yet incredibly detestable tale of an extremely poor southern family during the Great Depression. Their amazingly ignorant, destructive, and immoral behavior is almost painful to read about at times but is somehow strangely amusing. The story begins with Jeeter Lester stealing a sack of turnips from his son-in-law who has walked all day to buy them. After hearing the description of the family's living conditions, however, the reader almost feels he is justified in taking them to feed his starving children, wife, and mother. Any sympathy quickly vanishes when Jeeter runs off into the woods to stuff himself with turnips before he returns to give the little that is left to his family. It should come as no surprise that nearly all of his children ran away from home as soon as they could and never return home to visit. One of his two children that is still at home when the book begins is Dude, Jeeter's sixteen-year-old son. Soon Dude gets married to a traveling preacher woman named Bessie who was born without a nose. Bessie lures Dude into the marriage with the promise of a new car for Dude despite the fact that they are twenty-five years apart in age. After running over and killing a black man, an event which does not bother any of the Lesters, and other such calamities, the car is quickly rendered into a piece of junk by the destructive hands of Dude and Jeeter. When Bessie complains about their rough treatment of the car, Jeeter kicks her off his land and starts hitting her with sticks. In her rush to get away, Bessie runs over Jeeter's mother, but she does not even stop to see if she is alright. The amazing thing is that Jeeter does not go check on her either, and his mother suffers a slow, agonizing death as she attempts to crawl to the house. The characters in the book are not developed much beyond the fact that they are incredibly ignorant and immoral, but the reader gets the impression that that is because there is really not much more to the Lester family than those qualities. Any potential redeeming qualities are quickly obscured by a flood of more and more horrendous characteristics. An example of this is Jeeter's love of the land, which could be seen as a positive attribute. Quickly, however, the reader realizes that this love of the land is the root of the Lesters' poverty, because Jeeter cannot afford seeds to plant but will not leave the land to work in the city. This also serves to display the theme of the book which is man's often irrational refusal to accept changes in life. The style of the book, although plain, contains very well written dialog and the setting is excellently portrayed as well. If there is one problem in the book, it is the extremity to which the depravity of the characters is taken. This can make it nearly impossible to relate to or sympathize with the characters in any way. Although this can detract slightly from the story, overall the book was very entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: Tragi-comic view of Depression-era sharecroppers
Review: Jeeter Lester is an uneducated and unprincipled failure of a cotton-farmer who stays on the land years after the landowner has given up. Everyone else has gone off to the mills to earn a living, while he and the remnants of his family stay on the farm to starve. In spite of the sad setting, the book is deeply humorous. Caldwell's story-telling is colorful and smacks of authenticity, as if he personally knew people just like the ones in his book. A short, fast and easy read, but well worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Man vs himself in the industrial age
Review: Jeeter Lester own worst enemy is himself. He holds onto an agrarian lifestyle that no longer pays the bills. He's too old to go off and work in the mills and he wishes to continue farming as his father and grandfather did. I find the theme relevant in today's world, people hanging on to a lifestyle that is no longer profitable or rational. One sympathizes with the Lesters, there desire to stay and work the land instead of going off to an impersonal mill and work for "the man". Jeeter's problem is that he is unmotivated that stems from the lack of profit in an growing crops based on his circumstances
Rating:
Summary: The Grapes of Mirth
Review: Sort of "The Grapes of Mirth"; it's a lighthearted look at the zany antics of amoral, ignorant, stupid, inbred, deformed sharecroppers in the Piedmonts. It's a laugh riot if you think harelips are a hoot. This book is supposedly fraught with social signifigance. However, it raises an inevitable question: is there any economic system that would make it possible for people who are this stupid to succeed in life? Simple answer: No. GRADE: C+
Rating:
Summary: The ignorance of the Lester family evokes humor.
Review: The plight of the Lester family is depressing, but humorous. Their stupidity made me laugh, especially the scenes involving the destruction of the brand new automobile. They practically destroy the car, and they do not seem to care. Additionally, it is amazing how people can lack consideration for other individuals. Specifically, the scene where Bessie and Dude run over the grandmother, and the family shows no concern. When they eventually take her to be buried, I wasn't truly convinced that she was dead. All in all I felt the book was quite entertaining.
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