August 15th, 2015 – Book: ‘Southways’ by Erskine Caldwell
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Aug.15, 2015, under Books
Southways by Erskine Caldwell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This is a collection of stories by Caldwell set in his favorite setting – the South. Though well written, every single one of these 3 to 5 page stories is very depressing. If you’re having a tough time in life – Do not read this book!
Each story has different characters, but most have a similar theme of relationship troubles. All of the characters are very poor or worse. That lends itself to how similar most of the characters are. To a point I have to wonder why Caldwell didn’t just use the same name to many.
The main problem I have with these stories is that all trail off with no true ending. I realize that is a certain style. Just after 5 of these stories, it gets irritating and found I didn’t really care about any of the stories.
Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book. 4 out of 10 points.