Colonel Effingham's Raid

by Berry Fleming

Satire at its gentlest and best and humor at its richest mark this story of a blustery retired military officer who mounts his final campaign against those self-appointed and elected guardians of the public good (and the taxpayer’s purse strings) who are guilty of the sort of petty graft and private enrichment endemic in the mythical, sleepy, southern town of Fredricksville, Georgia.

Genres: Fiction

202 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1943

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Been wanting to read this for a while but I can't remember why. Set in "Fredericksville", Georgia which is actually the author's hometown of Augusta, it examines what the New York Times calls the "dry rot of Dixie politics". In actuality and unfortunately, it is the reality of politics everywhere and although it was penned in 1943, it may as well have been written yesterday.

[Sharon Healy-Yang · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished Colonel Effingham’s Raid, written in 1943. I was initially drawn to the book because my favorite actress Joan Bennett starred in the somewhat pointed comedy based on it. Produced in 1945 and released in ’46, the film poked fun at corrupt small town politics and the laziness and apathy of “good people” who allow corruption and oppression by a small group to flourish. The book also took tongue-in-cheek aim at those same flaws through the first-person narration of a likeable newspaper writer who was perfectly happy to go along to get along. However, where the film ended with a rousing speech by the newsman on his way to WWII that flummoxed the corrupt party bosses, there’s no such animal in the book. Maybe some snickering cynically at the patriotic cant in the bosses send-off speech – but no indication that things have changed. There’s a definite insinuation that going off to save the world for democracy hasn’t much precedent back home. It’s interesting that the gung-ho propaganda war years produced such cynical warnings, here and in other books like The Brick Foxhole. Still, it’s sad that the take of this book set in 1943 doesn’t deal with the lack of democracy in Jim Crow and lynchings.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great story about a fictional town around Atlanta and the newspaper-man nephew who witnessed it. Margaret Mitchel worked with Berry at the Atlanta Constitution and she recommended his work in a letter she wrote to Berry in praise of this one.