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American Folkways
Deep Delta Country
A book in the American Folkways Series. A collection of stories and histories of the delta country around the mouth of the Mississippi River.
283 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1944
22 people want to read
About the author
Harnett T. Kane
52 books10 followersHarnett Thomas Kane was a journalist and author of books about the American South. A 1931 graduate of Tulane University, he was a longtime reporters for the New Orleans Item, and he wrote travel articles and book reviews for a variety of publications.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 30, 2018
A loose ramble on the history, culture, and legends of the land below New Orleans. Kane portrays a riotous mix of cultures and languages: French, Spanish, African, Portuguese, and even Croatian. He discusses bits of history from the War of 1812 to the 1927 flood and rise of Leander Perez (before he became infamous for other things). He sees things through the lens of class, in keeping with iterature and sociology in the 1940s.
There is not as much on race or African culture, and some of what is written would make a 2018 reader pause or even gasp as they clutched their pearls. Such is our time, where many have lost both their sense of historical imagination and an understanding of class. It is the book's limitation, but in some ways its freedom, since you get to hear about things sometimes ignored today.
To the reader of 2018, its value lies in portraying a world we cannot conceive. It is a world before the lower parishes were defined by oil and erosion, when men walked who had known Beauregard or run liquor from the coast to the cities. Yet, I found Kane's lazy pacing and story-telling to be a bit dull unless you had an interest in the subject at hand. So the part on abandoned cemeteries and the Civil War drew me in, but not the stuff on riverboat pilots.
There is not as much on race or African culture, and some of what is written would make a 2018 reader pause or even gasp as they clutched their pearls. Such is our time, where many have lost both their sense of historical imagination and an understanding of class. It is the book's limitation, but in some ways its freedom, since you get to hear about things sometimes ignored today.
To the reader of 2018, its value lies in portraying a world we cannot conceive. It is a world before the lower parishes were defined by oil and erosion, when men walked who had known Beauregard or run liquor from the coast to the cities. Yet, I found Kane's lazy pacing and story-telling to be a bit dull unless you had an interest in the subject at hand. So the part on abandoned cemeteries and the Civil War drew me in, but not the stuff on riverboat pilots.
Displaying 1 of 1 review