Benton's Row

by Frank Yerby, Barye Phillips (Illustrator)

THE DEVIL'S SPAWN

This history of a pioneering Southern family unfolds in this story of triumph and tragedy. In 1842, Tom Benton gallopes in the Red River Valley, one jump ahead of a Texas posse bent on hanging him. He feared no living thing. He loved danger and laughed at the impossible. He stole his wife from her husband, his land from its legal owner. Not content with lusty Sarah, he took a knife-slinging Cajun's daughter for a mistress. From the day Tom Benton arrived into Louisiana, he and her family ruled the bayou country.

Tom sired three children. A daughter, Stormy, as wild and willful as himself. Wade, who inherited all of his father's weakness and none of his strength. And a second son not even Tom dared claim as his own -- a boy who one day would bring destruction and misery to the Benton clan. Devil's spawn they all were. Stormy ran away to the glittering life of a courtesan. Wade delivered his father over to the one man who could kill him. And in Benton's Row people watched, horrified, fascinated, and whispered -- “Every time a damned Benton is born, people should run for cover!”

In 1920 his wife Sarah, aged ninety-seven, dies peacefully in her rocker on the veranda of Tom Benton’s sprawling plantation known as Broad Acres, nestled in the exotic and mysterious Louisiana river country. This is a spellbinding story of four brawling generations of Bentons, a family that comes to a violent end caused by its own illicit Negro branch.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Civil War, Historical

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Born in Augusta, Georgia to Rufus Garvin Yerby, an African American, and Wilhelmina Smythe, who was caucasian. He graduated from Haines Normal Institute in Augusta and graduated from Paine College in 1937. Thereafter, Yerby enrolled in Fisk University where he received his Master's degree in 1938. In 1939, Yerby entered the University of Chicago to work toward his doctorate but later left the university. Yerby taught briefly at Florida A&M University and at Southern University in Baton Rouge.

Frank Yerby rose to fame as a writer of popular fiction tinged with a distinctive southern flavor. In 1946 he became the first African-American to publish a best-seller with The Foxes of Harrow. That same year he also became the first African-American to have a book purchased for screen adaptation by a Hollywood studio, when 20th Century Fox optioned Foxes. Ultimately the book became a 1947 Oscar-nominated film starring Rex Harrison and Maureen O'Hara. Yerby was originally noted for writing romance novels set in the Antebellum South. In mid-century he embarked on a series of best-selling novels ranging from the Athens of Pericles to Europe in the Dark Ages. Yerby took considerable pains in research, and often footnoted his historical novels. In all he wrote 33 novels.

Reviews

[L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tom Benton rides into Louisiana (to avoid a Texas posse), seduces a young wife, impregnates her, takes over her farm and runs off her elderly preacher husband, causing the preacher to lose his faith in God and commit suicide. And that's just the first two chapters! You can say a lot of things about Frank Yerby (like he's crazy as all get out) but you can't say nothing ever happens in his stories.

In the next two chapters, Tom gets exorcised, saves the lives of his neighbors, and gets yet another young woman pregnant. He's a busy, busy man.

In chapters 5 and 6 Tom gets turned down (!) by a woman, shot by her husband, worries about his own wife being unfaithful to him the way he's unfaithful to her, and the Mexican American War comes and goes in one paragraph.

As we enter Book 2 we leave Tom Benton's body a-moldering in the grave, because Frank Yerby isn't afraid to kill off his main character in the middle of the story. How many authors can say that? Now we follow the misfortunes of Tom's offspring: Stormy, Wade and Clint. The Civil War is just a passing fad and we jump right into Reconstruction. Sadly, Tom's children just don't have that extra oomph their sire had. Wade is too weak, with a shameful secret burdening him. Clint is too good, besides that whole sleeping with his brother's wife thing. Stormy simply sleeps around. You've got to be more than a slut, more than a super slut, you've got to be a Super Evil Slut, and Stormy does not bring it.

Book 3 is nothing but an infodump as the story tries to cover the next two generations in a confined space. The end result is the writing feels rushed and I'm not impressed with anything going on. What up with that, Frankie?

Speaking of what up, what up with that book description up at the top that includes "a family that comes to a violent end caused by its own illicit Negro branch"? Um, no. That's not how it ends at all. There is no "illicit Negro branch". Who wrote that description?

[Arturo Lopez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tom Benton rides into Louisiana and I, Arturo Lopez, rides with him from my early 20s ( I'm 83 ) and, gladly, have yet to dismount. I lived that entire book in my lifetime. No author had such an impact on me like Frank Yerby. I can just recommend this Frank Yerby saga by asking the next reader to take along a packed suitcase when reading it and move in with Tom Benton and become a witness how a nobody becomes a somebody. Fasten your seatbelt.

[Dale Hansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book. 1950's bestseller. Starts off like gangbusters, surprise in the middle, and the last part languishes as it goes from regional to cosmopolitan.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

c1954: FWFTB: nineteenth century: Louisiana: Frank Yerby 1916-1991. This book is not at all politically correct so do not read if you are easily offended. "Grey smoke plumed upward from the chimney. He smelled the smoke, and another smell too; sidemeat and greens cooking; and, the hunger in his belly was a knife, suddenly, twisting."

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read back in the 70s

[Dotti Enderle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read a lot of Frank Yerby when I was in high school. I loved his books. This one held me until Part 3. Too much scattered backstory. He should've wrapped it up with Sarah in the graveyard.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love story involving a fugitive from Texas. I would read a Yerby book and race to the library for another.

[Karinirmgard]

Deutscher Titel - Das Erbe der Bentons

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book turned out better'n I thought it would.