Love in a Dry Season

by Shelby Foote

Shelby Foote's magnificently orchestrated novel anticipates much of the subject matter of his monumental Civil War trilogy, rendering the clash between North and South with a violence all the more shocking for its intimacy. Love in a Dry Season describes an erotic and economic triangle, in which two wealthy and fantastically unhappy Mississippi families—the Barcrofts and the Carrutherses—are joined by an open-faced fortune hunter from the North, a man whose ruthlessness is matched only by his inability to understand the people he tries to exploit and his fatal incomprehension of the passions he so casually ignites. Combining a flawless sense of place with a Faulknerian command of the grotesque, Foote's novel turns a small cotton town into a sexual battleground as fatal as Vicksburg or Shiloh—and one where strategy is no match for instinct and tradition.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Southern, Gothic, Southern Gothic, Historical, American

250 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1951

About the author

Shelby Dade Foote, Jr. was an American novelist and a noted historian of the American Civil War, writing a massive, three-volume history of the war entitled The Civil War: A Narrative. With geographic and cultural roots in the Mississippi Delta, Foote's life and writing paralleled the radical shift from the agrarian planter system of the Old South to the Civil Rights era of the New South. Foote was relatively unknown to the general public for most of his career until his appearance in Ken Burns's PBS documentary The Civil War in 1990, where he introduced a generation of Americans to a war that he believed was "central to all our lives."

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book under duress: it was the monthly selection for my local book club and I did not look forward to the experience. The back of the novel compares Shelby Foote to William Faulkner, which immediately inspired within me the following thought: "Oh, crap." For I hates me some Faulkner. However, I've come to realize that, more often than not, a novel being described as "Faulknerian" is really just shorthand for the following: Southern; quirky, dark characters with unhealthy libertine appetites; and a tragic ending--and these are all things with which I'm okay. It doesn't always mean a rampant disregard for punctuation or that a boy falls in love with a cow. Foote's novel has a somewhat stock plot in Southern literature: Yankee comes to the South, tries to make inroads to the gentility and old money, and is destroyed in the process. However, it's the dysfunctional and well drawn characters that make the novel such an enjoyable read.

Set in the 1920's, the novel has as its setting a South that is still torn between the traditions of the past and the modernization of the future. This is represented by the two women of the novel: Amy Carruthers, symbolic of the new money of industry and the loosening of Bible Belt morals, and Amanda Barcroft, symbolic of the straight-laced world of old money and respectability. Both women are disconnected from the "Old Miss" of Southern myth and lack a defined role in society. Harley Drew, a Northern banker who longs to live the life of high society, becomes involved with both women. Throw in Jeff, a blind voyeur ("For what could be more pitiful than a voyeur in the dark?") and Amy's violently jealous husband, and it's just a matter of time before the crap hits the fan with particularly cringe-worthy and entertaining results.

Cross posted at This Insignificant Cinder

[Diane Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five main characters, three of whom are despicable human beings in all sorts of ways, two of them indescribably sad victims of the others. A love ( the word is used very loosely) triangle or quartet or quintet that insures unhappiness on all sides, with a little despair and revenge thrown in for good measure. A sleepy southern town as the setting gives us some mighty fine southern gothic.

Imagine yourself standing on a hilltop, watching what you know will be an historic, incredible train wreck. You watch the collision, the bodies and debris flying in all directions, the twisted metal coming to rest in the dust and destruction. And although you regret the injuries and death and ruined lives, you just have to say to yourself: "As train wrecks go, that was a beautiful example of a classic one."

That's what I felt as I turned the last page of this novel. Had I known what a wonderful fiction writer Shelby Foote was, I would never have waited this long to read his books.

[Lori Keeton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This dark and gothic “love” story by the author of the Civil War series surprised and horrified me. Within the pages, you will not find a character of good repute or sound mind. These people were narcissistic, selfish, arrogant, and unforgettable. I did not find one that I liked yet I will not forget them. Shelby Foote did a fantastic job of making me want to know more about these people and yet, I don’t feel good knowing the paths he chose for each one. If you are looking for a Southern Gothic novel with incredible writing and loathsome characters with a historical perspective, this is the novel for you. I won’t lie, there will be some shocking moments and you may want to throw your book across the room, but you will be glad you read this deceptively satisfying little novel.

Here is a quick look at a few reasons to pick it up, or let it alone, it’s up to you:

- A despicable promiscuous woman (inheritor of a plantation) with a blind, jealous, suspicious husband (heir to a tobacco fortune)
- A scoundrel banker and the only non-Southerner (also sexually loose) who attempts to woo a spinster daughter of the town’s wealthiest man, a cotton merchant
- An odd love triangle in which you wonder if anyone wins in the end


There is Southern charm here yet a measure of self-destructive trainwreck that you will want to stop and take a look just to be able to say you did!

[Tom Mathews · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never would have guessed that Civil War historian Shelby Foote could be the author of a complex psychological drama but Love in a Dry Season cries out to be dissected reading groups who like to delve into the dark inner workings of the human psyche. It has shown me why the word grotesque is so often used when discussing Southern Gothic writing. In LiaDS, the term genteel is no more than a thin and fragile facade, beneath which lie the demons that torment the characters in this wickedly satirical tale of lust, greed and murder in the Deep South. In a dream by a spinster, a man attacks with a knife only to have the knife morph into "a kind of tusk attached down there". It doesn't take Fellini to figure that out but that is just one of taste of the many subtle and not-so-subtle erotic innuendos and insinuations.
I was totally engaged for most of the story and was going to give it five stars but I feel that Foote took pity on his characters toward the end and let them off easy. For this reason I was a bit disappointed and marked it down to ★★★★ accordingly.

[Camie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This classic early Southern gothic set in fictional Bristol Mississippi, finds two wealthy families
the " old money" Barcrofts and the" trust fund" Carrutheres ( new arrivals in town ) in unhappy situations. When slick Harley Drew ( a Northerner) comes to town seeking fortune, he finds easy prey in Amanda Barcroft the gullible old maid daughter who stands to inherit her father's estate and also the young , beautiful, but fiercely restless Amy Carruthers, wife of recently blinded Jeff who has retained his father's wealth. Getting past one woman's father and the other's jealous husband will prove far more difficult than expected and unfortunately for Drew they're the ones who hold the keys to the family fortunes. Foote is most famous for his Civil War narratives, but he also wrote six novels this being the most touted. With a style compared to Faulkner, it's far easier to read. Disappointingly, as there are no like-able or even sympathy provoking characters here, nobody really gets the well deserved comeuppance that I found myself desperately wishing for, and the ending - did it have to be ever so vague ?? Sigh !! 3.5 stars

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me, Shelby Foote has always been that intrepid Civil War historian that wrote the book on the Southern perspective and contributed so much of importance to the Ken Burn’s mini-series. Now I find that he is also a novelist of some power and skill.

Love in a Dry Season was a 5-star novel to me right up to the last two chapters, when it slid down the scale to a still very respectable 4-stars. Written in the Southern Gothic style that echoes with strains of Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, it looks at Mississippi through the eyes of someone who understands even the quirkiest parts of Southern culture and what sets it apart from any other place on earth. Major Barcroft is shudderingly believable here and inconceivable anywhere else.

Foote gives us the willing victim, self-sacrificing Miss Amanda, who has a strength of character and endurance that is as admirable as it is bewildering; the pitiable Jeff Carruthers, who can be as easily despised as pitied; Jeff’s abominable wife, Amy; and the ultimate con-man around whom they all rotate, Harley Drew. He leads us a dance that is hard to watch, but from which we cannot force ourselves to look away.

The end of this novel was not a bad ending. It was not an illogical ending. It was not even an unjustifiable ending. But, for me it was an unsatisfactory ending. It felt as if the story had built to a crescendo and then someone popped the champagne cork to find the champagne itself was flat, had already fizzed out before it could be sampled. Perhaps I wanted a kind of retributive justice that doesn’t show up all that often in life or in novels. Who knows.

I’m pleased that I was brought to this novel by On The Southern Literary Trail book group. I don’t think I would have come across it on my own. It was time well spent and I would not hesitate to read other novels by this great historian, who obviously knows that history is really just the story of people.

[LA · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not with a bang, but a whimper. That's how this story wrapped up, although it had huge potential.

This noirish story of a naive spinster-to-be, her overbearing father, and the slickster who woos her is full of devilish promise. Add in a horrible married couple - first cousins - with an odd amorous relationship, and there is a powder keg of possibility.

The characters are nicely done, their romantic imbroglios are riveting, but the entire thing just fizzles and eventually peters out. It felt like the fireworks barge out on Lake Jordan sunk way before the big finale. 3.5 for me

EDITED TO ADD: upon thinking about it, I finally realized why this plot seemed so familiar. Twenty years before this was written, William Faulkner wrote a short story about a naïve spinster-to-be, her overbearing father, an inappropriate suitor who woos her weekly, an old Victorian house, a sick room in the house, and a woman who refuses to acknowledge the death of a loved one. Yep - if you've ever read the wonderful short story called A Rose for Emily, then you'll follow my drift. It felt like Foote grabbed the guts of that story, added the lecherous married couple, and had the inappropriate suitor be the tie that binds them.

Maybe somebody who is better read and more literary than me (it ain't hard to be, peeps!) can tell me if that general story line is just an old style plot or formula, similar to how romance novels have a woman with a husband they feel that is not trustworthy and a potential lover to entice her. I did straight up science in college and grad school and admit to total ignorance.

[Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. I just didn’t like any of the characters so I didn’t care what happened to them.

[Gloria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first became acquainted with Shelby Foote while watching Ken Burns' brilliant series on The Civil War. I was struck by his innate story-telling voice and felt I could have sat at his feet and listened to him all day.
I discovered, in addition to penning a collection on The Civil War, he'd delved into fiction as well. I wondered if that "voice" carried over to the written page.
I needn't have worried.

His is not prose that will suck you in and carry you along for the ride ... it is descriptive (without being burdeningly so), and you must carve out the time and space to savor his words and characters. I happily did so these last days and look forward to reading more.

[Faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Southern gothic in which a young man shows remarkable patience, and keeps his options open, in trying to marry his way into money. A little bit "Washington Square" and a little bit "The Postman Always Rings Twice". None of the characters was particularly likable. The book was well written and I was entertained by it, but I was glad that it was not longer. There was a little too much description and not enough action for me. The narrator of the audio book was excellent.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid four stars. Southern author Shelby Foote sure knew how to build characters. There is no way you can read this book and think otherwise. You may not like the characters in Love in a Dry Season, but you certainly won't forget them anytime soon.

Harley Drew, Amanda Barcroft and Amy Carruthers are all part of a love triangle with Harley Drew at its' center. Amanda is a wealthy, virgin, wallflower and is a perfect target for an opportunist and narcissist like Harley Drew. Well, until Harley meets the wealthier Amy Carruthers who has affairs with men for sport and a blind cousin for a husband. Oh, what a tangled web Harley weaves with these women and where this entanglement leads him is quite the story indeed. Did I mention Amy's father Mr. Barcroft? Let's not forget him. He's almost as big a snake as Harley Drew.

My first Shelby Foote book, but not going to be my last.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange and bizarre characters, each with their own peccadillos stand at three sides of a love triangle. Oh wait, are there at times 4 sides. Or at one time five sides?

Yes, it's baking and it's gnarly. And it's in Faulkner country and also, IMHO, attempts Faulkner like language. Style wise anyway. Holding lengthy, complicated by four verbal phrases at minimum sentences, at that. But not always.

It's grit. lit. before the ever present foul language of that genre? Also without the drugs.

Regardless, it nails these characters. Amy is the present day nasty girl man user. Harley the social climber and two faced misogynist that we meet in so many current moderns. But their depths of avarice are nearly 5 star in plot, locale, form. 4.5 star and Shelby Foote could write.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Umm... This wasn't a bad book but I was considerably underwhelmed.

[Oscar Lye · Rating 5 out of 5]

A melodrama of the Deep South, containing parables punctuated with biblical violence; no vice is left unpunished by a sentence more vicious than the sin. Greed, lust, rage, and hubris echo through two old cotton mansions, as if evil seeps from the very walls - a ground tainted by the injustice once committed upon it.

Shelby Foote’s prose is a transportive experience: enmeshing the reader in the molasses humidity of Mississippi, the shallow glamour of old money, and the dark shadow of the Jim Crow era. Through the lens of the small town of Bristol, vividly conjured by Shelby Foote, we witness these caustic elements react with spectacular volatility, and react with voyeuristic horror at the salacity of the drama.

[JC · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the great love stories of the 20th century. Or perhaps not. Either way this features loathsome characters who are made for each other. I was quite fond of this but I felt like ending dragged on too long. 3.75 ⭐

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't believe I waited so long to read Shelby Foote and I am after the next one already . I want to bask in more . I will write a better review later . Need to post this books ihave read as I have been participating in great conversations!

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book with its strange group of characters. The heat and humidity of the south made it that much more intoxicating. One of my favorite southern novels!

[ValeReads Kyriosity · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few days later, this is still taking up space in my head, so I'll add more thoughts (and bump up my rating). The ending was satisfying. The one good character found peace and fulfillment. The rotten characters (who made most of the book less than of pleasant), were allowed to drift away. In that, it was Austenian: "Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody not greatly in fault themselves to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest." I wish there'd been a greater proportion of those "not greatly in fault," but at least Foote did right by the one who was.

*****

Not quite dry, I think. Gray and muggy. Oppressive. I think I'll stick with Horton.

Narrator was OK, but I wish they'd gotten a Southern one.

[Mobeme53 Branson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but overrated

My opinion is that Mr Foote, in this novel, is a bit too clever for his own good. Some of the analogies he draws are stretching it too far for my liking. He is a excellent writer for the major part and excellent at drawing characters. I'm not saying it should be required, but I didn't like any of the people in the book. They were all lacking in either moral values or of, for lack of a better word, gumption. I understand the use of the pejorative word Nigger in context; however, he uses it in sentences that clearly are not necessary. An example would be when he describes a paint color as "Nigger Pink." What does that even mean.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for me, DNF.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once I got in the groove of the writing style, I really enjoyed the story. Written in 1951, so the style is different.

[P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started out a little slow, but as new characters were added and others fleshed out, this became a compelling story about the underside of human nature in the Jim Crow South. Recommended for its seemingly honest portrayal of the vagaries of life during another era of American history.

[Elizabeth K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, this was lovely. Southern drama, infidelity, revenge and family strife, what more do you need in a book? The plot is fairly straightforward -- a stranger arrives in the Mississippi Delta (not the delta of the Mississippi River), from the North, obviously, because where else would upheaval come from? and tangles in turn with a sheltered old maid and a wealthy, restless young married.

Grade: A
Recommended: Must-read for those captivated by Southern Gothic. It's also a bit on the mild side of the genre, it's not the way out grotesque of Flannery O'Connor, nor heavily convoluted like Faulkner.

[Jim Booth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shelby Foote's tale of upper class Southerners behaving badly is redolent with that peculiarly disturbing characteristic called "Southernness..."

See the full review at www.newsoutherngentleman.wordpress.com - link available at my Goodreads page. Thanks for stopping by!

[Candice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Southern Gothic! He has such a placid, genteel (and slyly humorous) way of presenting essentially horrifying human behavior. The Southern mind is a fascinating thing. I have yet to figure out why this place is so different than the rest of the country.

[Ray Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a fan of Shelby Foote's work on the Civil War. I had no idea he was an author of novels. Love in a Dry Season is set in a small town in Mississippi where Foote's southern background allows him to bring an authentic sensibility to every aspect of life. Set in the first half of the 20th century, characters and places have roots as far back as the Civil War, but the styles and sounds of the 20s are in fashion in the 30s and 40s. Our little town is a just a bit behind.

I give this book high marks for atmosphere, setting and detail. I enjoyed the writing style which to me is reminiscent of W. Somerset Maugham. His prose are direct and far more in the style of the Jazz age than of the 50s when the book was written. Several reviews mention Faulkner. I have not read Faulkner, but his is the period and genre Foote appears to me most influenced by.

The story begins with Jeff, a romantic young man who falls in love with and ultimately marries his beautiful cousin. Jeff inherits a fortune and he and his wife have a stormy and somewhat violent relationship. The scene then shifts to a young businessman searching for an easy road to riches.

Harley Drew comes to town as a salesman, runs into an old friend and becomes a banker. His decision to leave sales has to do with his courtship of a young heiress whose fortune is of more interest to Drew than anything else about her. He is not a good person, but he sets up a life and digs in for the long haul. As the chapters go by, Drew's orbit overlaps with Jeff's and the complexity of all relationships involved multiplies. Thus, this is a story of love and loss and life in a small town.

This is not my favorite kind of story, but it is certainly well written. Characters are well developed and the tale is dynamic and intriguing to the extent that it held my interest. As I mentioned, I am a fan of Foote's Civil War. I picked this up mostly out of curiosity and am glad I did. For me, this tremendously talented man has taken on a new dimension and I look forward to reading more of his literary works.

[Erin Bottger (Bouma) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to "Love in a Dry Season" on Hoopla and enjoyed it very much. The two families the book follows give insight into the Southern Gothic Consensus. The well-drawn characters are certainly flawed, but interesting, as they play out their little drama for us. And the overarching, ever-present Southern reality dooms them all to a kind of tragic ending.

This is my first Shelby Foote novel, and it demonstrates his grasp of historic details, centered on Mississippi. We are presented with two main female leads: the aging, plain, isolated and introverted daughter of wealth who is denied her man of choice by her domineering dad. And then we have the wealthy, worldly and restless Amy, who finds both small-town Southern life and her cousin-husband boring, stirs up interest and trouble with a charming traveling salesman from the North. He settles temporarily in a small Arkansas town to wait out the death of the old judge in order to marry his daughter and get his hands on some money. After long-term courting the one heiress and carrying on with the other, in the end, the charming banker gives up on them both and moves away to Memphis.

Foote brings to life a small, sleepy Southern town and its high and low social life, not to mention church and civic clubs. Both sexual passion and lonely expectation fill the pages of this story and keep the reader turning the pages. Some readers felt let down by the non-romantic ending, but I didn't; each character's destiny fitted them and was believably realistic.

[Nelson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't think I've made this up: there's an interview somewhere, I think, where Faulkner was asked what he thought of the young novelist Shelby Foote and the response was something along the lines of 'he'll be good when he gets the Faulkner out of his system'. Well, it's not out of his system, here, anyway, in a novel that feels a bit like warmed-over Sartoris. A small-town tale of intersecting families and sexual misbehavior. Amanda Barcroft is the shrinking violet daughter of a town scion, a would-have-been military hero called Major (for his military prep school training only). When the real vet Yankee chancer Harley Drew turns up in town (he's a kind of traveling cotton agent) he decides to stay and take a job in the local bank, his eyes firmly set on Amanda's future inheritance. He goes about it the wrong way, however, starting with the daughter instead of the dad, ending up frozen out. So he decides to wait, hoping to outlast the dad. In the interim, he takes up with Amy Carruthers, married to feckless and blind Jeff, the man she routinely cheats on. And matters spiral on from there. The first half of the book is largely dedicated to a wry Faulkneresque recounting of how all the major parties made their way onto the stage for the sordid denouement to come. It holds the attention, but throughout it feels deeply imitative and basically lesser Faulkner, both in terms of execution and theme.

[Hal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got to know about Shelby Foote through the Ken Burns "Civil War" series. His commentary and witty insights led me to his epic book series on the Civil War. I read all three volumes. I then discovered he had written a novel which led be to this book, actually I listened to it on audio.

The story covers interaction and a historical view on the lives of a number of people and a family in particular in the south from around the turn of the 20th century up to and into World War II. The plot somewhat predictable takes us through the intertwined personalities and motives of a number of individuals that I found captivating enough to take to conclusion.

Mr. Foote will always be noted and praised for his historical narrative, but this venture into the purely fictional along with his story telling style lends itself well making it a good read.

[Brad · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had forgotten how interesting fiction with description over dialogue could be. I've read plenty of fiction through the years, covering different styles, and with different levels of complexity. But when you have someone like Shelby Foote, who is both historian and novelist, you have a much greater sense of character development in complete detail. The narrative is rich in story. It combines traditional southern gothic, with contemporary language to paint such rich and vivid images into the mind of it's reader, you would be hard pressed to find such creativity in thought among so much of today's pocket book fiction. Many have complained about unlikeable characters. I find this irreelvent in terms of solid writing. But, if you are looking for a happy place in your reading, this book may not be for you.