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Miss Mamma Aimée
250pages. poche. Broché.
- GenresFiction
256 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
1 person is currently reading
25 people want to read
About the author
Erskine Caldwell
334 books226 followersErskine Preston Caldwell was an American author. His writings about poverty, racism and social problems in his native South won him critical acclaim, but they also made him controversial among fellow Southerners of the time who felt he was holding the region up to ridicule.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erskine_...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erskine_...
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 7, 2015
Erskine Caldwell who wrote "Tobacco Road" had been on my mind.
So when I found this little paperback on my shelf, it was timed just right. I had just finished another book and was wondering what next to read.
I finished the book about 10 days ago so I've had time to think about the storyline and especially the ending. When closing the book I thought to myself 'this is a three star' but since then bumped it another star.
A solid four star for nothing but the ending.
So when I found this little paperback on my shelf, it was timed just right. I had just finished another book and was wondering what next to read.
I finished the book about 10 days ago so I've had time to think about the storyline and especially the ending. When closing the book I thought to myself 'this is a three star' but since then bumped it another star.
A solid four star for nothing but the ending.
November 26, 2017
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Erskine Caldwell may well be the most underrated writer in American letters. If Émile Zola was the father of naturalism in literature, Erskine Caldwell is, without doubt, his best American disciple. He writes from the heart and from the groin—and we are, let us not forget, first and foremost animals: in some cases, possessing a heart; in most cases, master of little more than a groin.
Southern readers of Caldwell’s writing may well be offended by it, which I can well understand. From everything of his I’ve read to date, the setting is always the South—which Caldwell knew well. He is not kind to the South—and particularly not to what we in the North call “poor white trash” (even if poor white trash is no more peculiar to the South than it is to the North).
I think a good example of Caldwell’s descriptive powers can be found in the following opening paragraph of Chapter 6 on p. 49: “(w)hile Raley put on his shirt and shoes, Aimee, looking into the room from where she stood on the narrow porch, could see a paint-chipped, iron-frame bed with a bare mattress and a soiled gray-tick pillow. Near the bed was Raley’s small radio on a wooden crate, a large pearl-handled revolver and a thick Bible on the table, and a single chair. The window had neither a curtain nor a shade over it, there was no rug on the plank floor, and the ceiling was rain-stained and sagging in two of the corners. On a shelf above the cold-water basin was a rusty hot-plate, and on the floor under the basin was a dented tin pan and a chapped china plate and a discolored coffee cup. Raley’s black suit was hanging on a nail in the wall.”
Do I think the prose in Miss Mamma Aimee is at the level of the prose in God’s Little Acre or Tobacco Road? No, I don’t—which is why I’ve given it only 4 stars. But I read this short novel (210 pages) in only one day because I found both the form and the content compelling enough to do so. Is the content somewhat soap-operatic in places? Yes, it is. But I will continue to read Erskine Caldwell until I no longer have eyes to read with—at which point, I will be happy to have read all I ever care or need to read.
RRB
Brooklyn, NY
26 November 2017
Southern readers of Caldwell’s writing may well be offended by it, which I can well understand. From everything of his I’ve read to date, the setting is always the South—which Caldwell knew well. He is not kind to the South—and particularly not to what we in the North call “poor white trash” (even if poor white trash is no more peculiar to the South than it is to the North).
I think a good example of Caldwell’s descriptive powers can be found in the following opening paragraph of Chapter 6 on p. 49: “(w)hile Raley put on his shirt and shoes, Aimee, looking into the room from where she stood on the narrow porch, could see a paint-chipped, iron-frame bed with a bare mattress and a soiled gray-tick pillow. Near the bed was Raley’s small radio on a wooden crate, a large pearl-handled revolver and a thick Bible on the table, and a single chair. The window had neither a curtain nor a shade over it, there was no rug on the plank floor, and the ceiling was rain-stained and sagging in two of the corners. On a shelf above the cold-water basin was a rusty hot-plate, and on the floor under the basin was a dented tin pan and a chapped china plate and a discolored coffee cup. Raley’s black suit was hanging on a nail in the wall.”
Do I think the prose in Miss Mamma Aimee is at the level of the prose in God’s Little Acre or Tobacco Road? No, I don’t—which is why I’ve given it only 4 stars. But I read this short novel (210 pages) in only one day because I found both the form and the content compelling enough to do so. Is the content somewhat soap-operatic in places? Yes, it is. But I will continue to read Erskine Caldwell until I no longer have eyes to read with—at which point, I will be happy to have read all I ever care or need to read.
RRB
Brooklyn, NY
26 November 2017
August 13, 2015
A ripe, lazy look at crumbling Southern society centering around a braying old harpy and her kinky kinfolk. Plays like 'The Prurient Adventures of Ma & Pa Kettle'.
July 21, 2017
After reading enough of Erskine Caldwell's books you pick up his themes and format. Over time, you can see why he necessarily wasn't a popular author in the American South. This is another bulk standard book by Caldwell, predominantly focusing on a dysfunctional and broken family, one that has been a big name in generations gone by, but, coming to an end. Like with so many of Caldwell's other works its main underlying themes are that of religion and sex.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews