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South Moon Under
Rawlings' first novel, South Moon Under, captures the richness of Cross Creek in telling the story of a young man, Lant, who must support himself and his mother by making and selling moonshine, and what he must do when a traitorous cousin threatens to turn him in. Moonshiners were the subject of several of her stories, and Rawlings lived with a moonshiner for several weeks near Ocala to prepare for writing the book. South Moon Under was included in the Book-of-the-Month Club and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
210 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1933
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About the author
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
81 books736 followersPeople know American writer Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings for her novel
The Yearling
(1938).
This author lived in rural Florida with rural themes and settings. Her best known work, The Yearling, about a boy who adopts an orphaned fawn, won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939 and was later made into a movie of the same title, The Yearling. The book was written long before the concept of young-adult fiction, but is now commonly included in teen-reading lists.
This author lived in rural Florida with rural themes and settings. Her best known work, The Yearling, about a boy who adopts an orphaned fawn, won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939 and was later made into a movie of the same title, The Yearling. The book was written long before the concept of young-adult fiction, but is now commonly included in teen-reading lists.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
March 7, 2024
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings prose is gorgeous when talking of North Central Florida’s scrub, hammock and piney woods. You do need people to make a novel though. This story has three generations of a family and their neighbors. The author calls them crackers not meaning to insult. They are poor but almost entirely self-sufficient especially at the beginning of the story, the late 19th century. MKR doesn’t give lots of information about time or even specific places. Her story feels timeless. Things inevitably do change. It becomes more difficult to scratch a living from depleted farm plots, animals get over hunted and ecologically worse, large turpentine and cattle companies interfere with the environment. People begin to turn more to dependence on making salable moonshine and “revenooers,” never popular, begin to enforce the laws during prohibition. The locals have been accustomed to operating on their own beliefs and arrest would be disastrous. Deer, which fed man year round, are now hunted with strict laws. The locals resent what they think are outsider’s laws.
At one time there were no real roads, no cars (you read of some at the end of the book), no trains and only rivers for distance travel. MKR was not a native of this area, was college educated, but was watchful and sympathetic. It was difficult for me to enjoy her interest in local dialect, but very interesting to read about folklore, moonshining, and traditions that have no doubt been swept away by modern life and development. There are times I felt that it was a little too “educational.” It is definitely worth reading.
At one time there were no real roads, no cars (you read of some at the end of the book), no trains and only rivers for distance travel. MKR was not a native of this area, was college educated, but was watchful and sympathetic. It was difficult for me to enjoy her interest in local dialect, but very interesting to read about folklore, moonshining, and traditions that have no doubt been swept away by modern life and development. There are times I felt that it was a little too “educational.” It is definitely worth reading.
August 19, 2023
''Dead limbs were falling in the swamp. It was a certain sign of rain. They fell from trees before and after, as though some dropped in terror of the moist burden, and others resisted a little longer. Limpkins were crying, and it would not be long before the grey curtain over the scrub and river dissolved into a sweep of rain’’
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1886-1953) was born in Washington and moved to Florida in 1928. Immediately she started work on her first novel. She drew material for her stories from the Alachua County region in community of Cross Creek. She lived with a moonshiner for several weeks whilst researching the novel. During this time she learned the local dialect and traditions that makes this book so unique.
South Moon Under is an absolutely fantastic book, focusing on three generations of a poor rural ‘Cracker’ family in Florida. The Lantry’s farm on remote land, which was mainly scrub forest, swamp and hammock.
The book focuses on Lant and his mother Piety (pronounced Py-tee). It’s title refers to one of the moon’s stages, what they believed to be a critical influence on hunting and crops. Lant learns to hunt deer using moonlight.
''On the way home he considered the deer and the moon. He considered the fish and the owls. The deer and the rabbits, the fish and the owls, stirred at moon-rise and at moon-down; at south-moon-over and at south-moon-under''
It’s a wonderful story about people who are totally at one with nature. The descriptions of all the plants and animals are just gorgeous. It’s deeply atmospheric and Rawlings captures the wilderness for all it’s danger, and beauty.
“The sun was high. The river red and gold and bronze, for the sweet gums and hickories and maples were in full autumn colour. The cypress needles had turned to the deep-red of Lant’s hair. The river water, stained by cypress and magnolia, dissolved in it’s clear brownness.”
There’s a host of colourful characters, all doing their bit to get by in an environment of extreme poverty. Prohibition plays a big part (and casts a long shadow) as Lant makes moonshine during the Depression. This only leads to a world of pain as his cousin becomes jealous of his success. It never ceases to amaze me what people will do for 25 pieces of silver.
South Moon Under was a finalist in the 1933 Pulitzer Prize. It was in good company. Faulkner’s magnificent Light in August was also a runner up. TB Stribling’s The Store was the winner in what was a wonderful year for southern literature.
The dialect makes it a little challenging, but don’t let that put you off. I started off slowly and ended up in awe of the writing. I really can’t do it justice. Without doubt a contender for my favourite book this year.
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1886-1953) was born in Washington and moved to Florida in 1928. Immediately she started work on her first novel. She drew material for her stories from the Alachua County region in community of Cross Creek. She lived with a moonshiner for several weeks whilst researching the novel. During this time she learned the local dialect and traditions that makes this book so unique.
South Moon Under is an absolutely fantastic book, focusing on three generations of a poor rural ‘Cracker’ family in Florida. The Lantry’s farm on remote land, which was mainly scrub forest, swamp and hammock.
The book focuses on Lant and his mother Piety (pronounced Py-tee). It’s title refers to one of the moon’s stages, what they believed to be a critical influence on hunting and crops. Lant learns to hunt deer using moonlight.
''On the way home he considered the deer and the moon. He considered the fish and the owls. The deer and the rabbits, the fish and the owls, stirred at moon-rise and at moon-down; at south-moon-over and at south-moon-under''
It’s a wonderful story about people who are totally at one with nature. The descriptions of all the plants and animals are just gorgeous. It’s deeply atmospheric and Rawlings captures the wilderness for all it’s danger, and beauty.
“The sun was high. The river red and gold and bronze, for the sweet gums and hickories and maples were in full autumn colour. The cypress needles had turned to the deep-red of Lant’s hair. The river water, stained by cypress and magnolia, dissolved in it’s clear brownness.”
There’s a host of colourful characters, all doing their bit to get by in an environment of extreme poverty. Prohibition plays a big part (and casts a long shadow) as Lant makes moonshine during the Depression. This only leads to a world of pain as his cousin becomes jealous of his success. It never ceases to amaze me what people will do for 25 pieces of silver.
South Moon Under was a finalist in the 1933 Pulitzer Prize. It was in good company. Faulkner’s magnificent Light in August was also a runner up. TB Stribling’s The Store was the winner in what was a wonderful year for southern literature.
The dialect makes it a little challenging, but don’t let that put you off. I started off slowly and ended up in awe of the writing. I really can’t do it justice. Without doubt a contender for my favourite book this year.
December 1, 2023
"But if the road had been hard, it was also pleasant. If a living was uncertain, and the sustaining of breath precarious, why, existence took on an added value and a greater sweetness. The tissues of life were food and danger. These were the warp and woof, and all else was an incidental pattern picked out with vari-colored wools. Love and lust, hate and friendship, even birthing and dying, were thin grey and scarlet threads across the sun-browned, thick and sturdy stuff that was life itself. The old women sat together with bare, translucent faces, knowing that the pulse of blood through the veins was a rich, choice thing, and the drawing of a breath was good."
That is how Rawlings described Florida Cracker life in the first part of the 20th century. She lived with them for a time to get a real feel for their lives and thoughts. A true family saga of a different kind of family, in a time where making a living was difficult, and a man did what he had to do to get by. Things went well til the Federal Government stepped in and insisted on progress , which meant new laws against what used to be accepted practice. How in the world could making and selling a little whiskey be a bad thing? Or hunting out of season to feed your family?
If you want a real feel for the wild Florida scrub as it used to be, before civilization and tourists and concrete changed it forever, this is your novel. No one is better at describing a land and people she lived among and loved, than Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. This was her first novel and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, which gives you some idea of her writing talent. It kept me riveted throughout. I did not have a problem with the dialect after the first few pages, so don't let that deter you.
That is how Rawlings described Florida Cracker life in the first part of the 20th century. She lived with them for a time to get a real feel for their lives and thoughts. A true family saga of a different kind of family, in a time where making a living was difficult, and a man did what he had to do to get by. Things went well til the Federal Government stepped in and insisted on progress , which meant new laws against what used to be accepted practice. How in the world could making and selling a little whiskey be a bad thing? Or hunting out of season to feed your family?
If you want a real feel for the wild Florida scrub as it used to be, before civilization and tourists and concrete changed it forever, this is your novel. No one is better at describing a land and people she lived among and loved, than Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. This was her first novel and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, which gives you some idea of her writing talent. It kept me riveted throughout. I did not have a problem with the dialect after the first few pages, so don't let that deter you.
December 14, 2024
It took me a long time to read this novel. Throughout that time, I struggled to understand the words spoken by the characters, as the dialect was thick. Since I read for fun, that hurt my motivation to pick it up. But, moreover, the book seemed to me to be like a nostalgic look at past days gone by, with not a lot of tension in the story to keep me interested in the lives of the people. There were a few paragraphs in the last ten percent of the novel that spoke about how a man cannot avoid trouble he is fated to have, but that did not redeem the rest of the book.
June 11, 2012
When I was in college at the University of Florida in the early 70's, I did some internship work in community health in rural north Florida. I was from a big city (Tampa) so a counselor I worked with in Live Oak recommended that I read "South Moon Under" to understand better the family backgrounds of some of the people from that area. I was surprised to find it to be a very engaging and beautifully written story and read it rather quickly even though I was busy with my studies. A friend mentioned Marjorie Rawlings the other day, which reminded me of reading this (and The Sojouner, as well I think). It's been a long time and I think I may read it again if I can find a copy.
January 3, 2021
If reading of Wallace Stegner’s vanished American west, or Betty Smith’s New York City tenement upbringing, one can visit museums and learn of families still directly connected to these pasts. Not so with South Moon Under. Its inhabitants were few, and their lifestyles were being altered by an encroaching 20th century efficiency. Even Rawlings asks the indulgence of the few who knew this lifestyle as she moved events around to best suit her story. To read South Moon Under is to enter a disappeared American past of few inhabitants, to slowly read their convincing dialects, and even to learn what “south moon under” means.
I’ve visited the Rawlings home more than once, read The Yearling, and hiked the Yearling Trail in Ocala. My discovery of South Moon Under was a treat. Unknown by many, this Florida Cracker story was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (which was given to Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth), and is as strong as The Yearling.
The story of betrayal and evidence hidden in swamps, its moonshine emphasis, even the strong-as-oak folkways of its characters, situate themselves in the severe Florida scrub. Unforgiving, its life-long inhabitants could get lost in it and die. Alligators, poisonous snakes, combine with an 20th century poverty to create a strong, petty, inbred community who, taken out of the scrub, were backwards, certainly primitive. Yet in the scrub had the grit and know-how to maintain a hardscrabble life.
Characters come and go in South Moon Under. If they are outsiders (from Alabamy) they might return to an easier life. If not, they die of accidents (sobering is when the stomach of a 20-foot alligator reveals a partial shoe), revenge, or an early old age caused by decades-long subsistence. Piety, allowed to live, comments on her many dead family members, all the while aging and declining.
The story’s main protagonist is Lant. Cunning, aloof, even obtuse, he fits in the scrub like the proverbial fish in water. Mostly through him we learn about the Florida scrub, as Rawlings details its magic through the novel’s plot. Rawlings left her home to live with a Florida Cracker family, learn their stories, dialect, and certainly their moonshining talents, to create this convincing novel.
The different themes of South Moon Under: betrayal, delayed love, patience, loss, grit, all find their place in the ubiquitous, not-to-be underestimated Florida scrub. Rawling’s move to Florida to grow as a writer produced this excellent novel of a vanished American folkway.
I’ve visited the Rawlings home more than once, read The Yearling, and hiked the Yearling Trail in Ocala. My discovery of South Moon Under was a treat. Unknown by many, this Florida Cracker story was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (which was given to Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth), and is as strong as The Yearling.
The story of betrayal and evidence hidden in swamps, its moonshine emphasis, even the strong-as-oak folkways of its characters, situate themselves in the severe Florida scrub. Unforgiving, its life-long inhabitants could get lost in it and die. Alligators, poisonous snakes, combine with an 20th century poverty to create a strong, petty, inbred community who, taken out of the scrub, were backwards, certainly primitive. Yet in the scrub had the grit and know-how to maintain a hardscrabble life.
Characters come and go in South Moon Under. If they are outsiders (from Alabamy) they might return to an easier life. If not, they die of accidents (sobering is when the stomach of a 20-foot alligator reveals a partial shoe), revenge, or an early old age caused by decades-long subsistence. Piety, allowed to live, comments on her many dead family members, all the while aging and declining.
The story’s main protagonist is Lant. Cunning, aloof, even obtuse, he fits in the scrub like the proverbial fish in water. Mostly through him we learn about the Florida scrub, as Rawlings details its magic through the novel’s plot. Rawlings left her home to live with a Florida Cracker family, learn their stories, dialect, and certainly their moonshining talents, to create this convincing novel.
The different themes of South Moon Under: betrayal, delayed love, patience, loss, grit, all find their place in the ubiquitous, not-to-be underestimated Florida scrub. Rawling’s move to Florida to grow as a writer produced this excellent novel of a vanished American folkway.
December 16, 2014
At first, I thought my review would be "Decent, but stick to Cross Creek and The Yearling for the best look at the Cracker lifestyle and the ecology of the area." Surprisingly, towards the end I suddenly wound up appreciating the book more because it depicted the erosion of this way of life as society caught up to the wilderness and laws enforced new ways upon the people, and the lives they used to lead became untenable. Interesting, though the characters themselves were less likable to me than in other MKR books.
March 24, 2021
South Moon Under was Rawlings’ first book, and it takes place in the 1930s in the scrub around the Ocklawaha and St. Johns Rivers in central Florida. A poor rural “Cracker” family’s story is told through anecdotes of their struggles to survive and make a living. Lantry, a man who is “on the run” after killing a revenooer, a government agent who chases moonshiners, is the first character we get to know. After having five children, his wife dies early in the story, and Piety, one of the daughters, takes care of her father, helps with the land, and becomes a leading protagonist in the story. When Lantry has a heart attack and realizes that his days are numbered, he makes sure that Piety has a husband, Willy Jacklin.
Willy and Piety have a son whom they name after her father and call him Lant. Willy is less astute about living on and working the land than Piety and her father and consequently doesn’t survive. Lant, who becomes the other protagonist in the book, works with his mother to maintain a subsistence living on land that is difficult to farm and manage. They grow some vegetables and shoot squirrels, game birds, and deer for food. And, of course, run a moonshine business. Rawlings includes several characters in the story designed to give us a feel for the life of the Florida Cracker lifestyle: Piety’s siblings, their families, and other community members who assist and support the trapping gatoring, lumbering, and moonshining. However, the real story is about how Piety and Lant’s lives are in rhythm with nature. Everything they do relates to the moon phases, the earth's rotation, the animal creatures’ habits, and the land's characteristics. They live in harmony with nature and therefore survive. They take the deaths of relatives in stride, much the way their animal counterparts do, and although their habits are primitive, they find comfort in them and resent the northerners’ efforts to modernize Florida.
The reader realizes that Lant is one with the moon. His animal instincts are strong, and he thrives on enjoying the wild, open land. Some of his human emotions are repressed, but he works hard to provide for and protect his mother. He is aware, much like the animals, who his friends are, and when he is betrayed, he acts upon his disappointment as the animals would. This book is an important contribution to the literature depicting backwoods living in Florida.
https://quipsandquotes.net/?p=509
Willy and Piety have a son whom they name after her father and call him Lant. Willy is less astute about living on and working the land than Piety and her father and consequently doesn’t survive. Lant, who becomes the other protagonist in the book, works with his mother to maintain a subsistence living on land that is difficult to farm and manage. They grow some vegetables and shoot squirrels, game birds, and deer for food. And, of course, run a moonshine business. Rawlings includes several characters in the story designed to give us a feel for the life of the Florida Cracker lifestyle: Piety’s siblings, their families, and other community members who assist and support the trapping gatoring, lumbering, and moonshining. However, the real story is about how Piety and Lant’s lives are in rhythm with nature. Everything they do relates to the moon phases, the earth's rotation, the animal creatures’ habits, and the land's characteristics. They live in harmony with nature and therefore survive. They take the deaths of relatives in stride, much the way their animal counterparts do, and although their habits are primitive, they find comfort in them and resent the northerners’ efforts to modernize Florida.
The reader realizes that Lant is one with the moon. His animal instincts are strong, and he thrives on enjoying the wild, open land. Some of his human emotions are repressed, but he works hard to provide for and protect his mother. He is aware, much like the animals, who his friends are, and when he is betrayed, he acts upon his disappointment as the animals would. This book is an important contribution to the literature depicting backwoods living in Florida.
https://quipsandquotes.net/?p=509
October 1, 2011
Never thought I'd ever be reading a book about moonshinin'! Somehow I always equate moonshine with hillbillies - not true, I discovered. These people live in the Florida scrub. SMU is a piecing together of Rawlings' experiences living with them. As she says in the introduction, "These people are "lawless" by an anomaly. They are living an entirely natural, and very hard life, disturbing no one...Yet everything they do is illegal. And everything they do is necessary to sustain life in that place. The old clearings have been farmed out and will not "make" good crops anymore. The big timber is gone. The trapping is poor. They 'shine, because 'shining is the only business they know that can be carried on in the country they know, and would be unwilling to leave."
I was already an admirer of MKR both as a writer and human being, and this book cemented that feeling. She writes from real life - these are not inventions, they are events that she witnessed or was told of while living with the 'shiners. "While I was there, I did all the illegal things too; stalked deer with a light at night, out of season, kept the family in squirrels, paddled the boat while my friend dynamited mullet, shot limpkin on the river edge and had to wade waist-deep to get him...But with food scarce, these people kill, quite correctly, I think, what they need. Incidently, *only* what they need for food."
Having said all that, the book is more about a love for one's environment than anything else. Rawlings deeply loves the Florida landscape and the people who live in its rhythms. Everything she writes has a lyrical, almost hymnlike quality of reverence for nature. It's ironic that some of her most beautiful passages are those describing hunting (I'm not keen on hunting.), but it's clear to me that this was a necessary way of life at one time. Enjoyed this book immensely.
I was already an admirer of MKR both as a writer and human being, and this book cemented that feeling. She writes from real life - these are not inventions, they are events that she witnessed or was told of while living with the 'shiners. "While I was there, I did all the illegal things too; stalked deer with a light at night, out of season, kept the family in squirrels, paddled the boat while my friend dynamited mullet, shot limpkin on the river edge and had to wade waist-deep to get him...But with food scarce, these people kill, quite correctly, I think, what they need. Incidently, *only* what they need for food."
Having said all that, the book is more about a love for one's environment than anything else. Rawlings deeply loves the Florida landscape and the people who live in its rhythms. Everything she writes has a lyrical, almost hymnlike quality of reverence for nature. It's ironic that some of her most beautiful passages are those describing hunting (I'm not keen on hunting.), but it's clear to me that this was a necessary way of life at one time. Enjoyed this book immensely.
March 3, 2010
Margorie Kinnan Rawlings was a lady who moved to Florida in the earlier half of the 1900s, living in the now locally-familiar "Cross Creek" area. She ran an orange grove and wrote stories about the disappearing 'old ways', as well as the untamed Florida landscape that abounded. This region of Florida is not far from where I grew up. Probably in part because of this fact, in grade school we had to read The Yearling (the novel that earned her the Pulitzer Prize). Margorie Rawlings wrote about the vices and virtues of the real-life characters that she lived amongst, and the wild Florida woods that shaped them. Her relationship to place is of key importance to the culture she represents, and her masterful use of language. Her slice of Northern Florida is still the deep south, and not far from my own. This simple fact helps explain why I loved her book, South Moon Under.
March 8, 2013
I have this book in my library and have read it many times. Rawlings is known for her books on the Florida backwoods. She seems to view her characters in much the same way that Steinbeck did, with a wry affection and respect. Just as Steinbeck referred to Rosasharn (as pronounced by her family) by her rather elegant true name "Rose of Sharon," so Rawlings calls "Py-tee" by her true name, Piety. The characters are strong and stoic, as one would expect from a family eking out a living in the Florida scrub. But there are snatches of true tenderness and humor that makes the main characters very endearing. Rawlings excels at describing the activities of the people and the land they are attached to. "There came a time in mid-afternoon when all life seemed suspended. The river flowed interminably but as though without advance. The boy thought that he had been always in this still, liquid place." The casual racism of the time intrudes periodically but it is not unexpected in a 1930s novel. Very spare, but elegant prose.
February 10, 2011
I wasn't sure what to expect but once I met the swamp family; Big Daddy Lantry, his dour wife, wild sons and strong willed daughter, Tiety I couldn't put it down. The story chronicles three generations of the family. I had to adjust my tongue around the old south talk. Life is tough, but the soul of the people are just as tough as the reader moves through death, illness, love and slow progression of the family to adjust to change in society like the children taking a boat across the river to school and this was the easiest of progressions of a backwater people struggling to survive while also wanting a better life for their children. The book is a historical look at life in the United States and perhaps an ancestor? The Skye in June
August 24, 2020
Another Florida book, another Florida podcast!
I'm still surprised it has taken me so long to read this book! I probably got my first copy 30 years ago. I've got about a dozen.
It took getting on a Rawlings kick to get me to actually read the book. This is the 6th of Rawlings-ish books I've read. more to come! Gonna really read 'The Yearling' after my attempts decades ago.
So, here 'tis:
Swampy’s Florida Podcast: Book Review: ‘South Moon Under’ by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.
This book review looks over Rawlings offering before ‘Cross Creek’ was published. A review of her story, characters and , the real star, Florida’s natural areas. -
https://anchor.fm/swampysflorida/epis...
B ottom line: I recommend this book. 10 out of ten points.
I'm still surprised it has taken me so long to read this book! I probably got my first copy 30 years ago. I've got about a dozen.
It took getting on a Rawlings kick to get me to actually read the book. This is the 6th of Rawlings-ish books I've read. more to come! Gonna really read 'The Yearling' after my attempts decades ago.
So, here 'tis:
Swampy’s Florida Podcast: Book Review: ‘South Moon Under’ by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.
This book review looks over Rawlings offering before ‘Cross Creek’ was published. A review of her story, characters and , the real star, Florida’s natural areas. -
https://anchor.fm/swampysflorida/epis...
B ottom line: I recommend this book. 10 out of ten points.
June 16, 2023
Marjorie Rawlings’s genius was to portray the essence of her characters, and make us love them one and all. This story is set in the north Florida swamps and hammocks where she wrote from her cabin in the 1930s. It preceded The Yearling, but it is also a story about life among folks who liked living in the Florida woods, loving its animals and vegetation from which they scratched their living—and mostly loving each other. The animals were bears, panthers, alligators, rattlesnakes, raccoons, rats, wild hogs, fish from the river, song birds, shore birds, turkeys, and more; so many of the plants were the perfumed oleander and honeysuckle and magnolia, mixed in with the scrub pines and live oak. Mosquitos and gnats were endured by screening over their beds.
But Marjorie didn’t just describe the scenery. She made stories, and this one is just as compelling as The Yearling. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, even until the end. But I always wanted to know, because she made me care for these particular people in a time and place that is now no more. I miss them, but I am so glad she made the effort to preserve them in her beautifully written novels.
But Marjorie didn’t just describe the scenery. She made stories, and this one is just as compelling as The Yearling. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, even until the end. But I always wanted to know, because she made me care for these particular people in a time and place that is now no more. I miss them, but I am so glad she made the effort to preserve them in her beautifully written novels.
April 28, 2012
This is a story about "crackers" in the Florida swamps. Their simple lives are depicted well, including their moonshing and wild game poaching. It follows the story of a young girl, Piety, who by the end of the book is an old (before her time) woman. At first the dialect bothered me but it truly helped get into the way of life. It was written in the 30s and thus has many racial slurs, however, there seems to be no intent by the author to belittle any sort of people. It's just the way they talked and the way they were. It's not an easy book to find and I paid about $7 for an old Bantam paperback whose original price was 25 cents. I would recommend it to adult readers, not because of the language or action in the book, but because I just don't think the youth of today would appreciate it.
September 15, 2020
South Moon Under brings to life the ways of our forefathers and how they lived in old Florida. Ms. Rawlings captured the beauty and suuroundings of the scrub and how settlers fought so hard to maintain their way of life in the hard times. I have always loved Ms. Rawlings stories with their detailed descriptions of the plants and animals that abounded in old Florida. I feel that she was able to expound on life back then while she lived at Cross Creek and became friends with the locals. There is so much wisdom and lore to be found if one will just talk to the old folks about how life used to be. This book will not disappoint you if you love history and Florida as it used to be before progress came to reside here. Enjoy!
December 6, 2023
Rawlings writing puts you right there in the scrub and you can picture this book like a movie unfolding before you. Tremendous respect for people living during this time and the hard work and hardships they had to endure. Makes me aware of this soft life I am living and grateful for it. Mental note to visit Rawling’s museum at Cross Creek.
August 30, 2021
Parts of this book made me weepy. I felt so much for Lant and Keezy, in particular. The scenes in the woods and on the river really touched me. I think it meant extra to me because I read MKR’s biography.
September 3, 2012
This was such a wonderful book! Love this kind of book. Takes you back to middle Florida in the late 1800s and early 1900s..This is one of her best. So happy to discover it..Read it!!
November 30, 2018
If you want to know what it was like to live in "old Florida" this is the book to read
January 3, 2013
Review of South Moon Under
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s novel South Moon Under is a spiritual allegory based on the teachings of the modern mystic George Ivanovich Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff’s teachings were disseminated in New York during the 1920s by the British editor A.R. Orage. Orage enlisted a large number of writers, artists, intellectuals, and other creative individuals into the Gurdjieff Work. Though it has not previously been part of her biography, it is apparent from reading the novel that Rawlings was one of this group. Under Orage’s direction many modern writers produced esoteric novels that in some way incorporated Gurdjieff’s teachings. This practice was followed out of their belief that unless a sufficient number of people of higher consciousness could be created by Gurdjieff’s esoteric school the entire civilization of the Earth would be destroyed. One of the means for recruiting more adherents was the production of novels that contained both an invitation to join the group and esoteric doctrines that would perhaps survive this coming fall. There is some ambiguity here as to what the downfall would look like, for in Hurston’s novels there is the suggestion that in lieu of the failure of mankind another species might rise to the level of civilization. The Gurdjiefian interpreter P.D. Ouspensky (See In Search of the Miraculous) records Gurdjieff’s suggestion that ants were once more highly evolved and were of a vastly greater size but were reduced when they failed to provide the needed spiritual food for the next level of life. These doctrines may be suggested by the final image of the novel where Kezzy has her children look up at a mother squirrel-cat on a branch above their boat.
In all of the Oragean novels a code is used to hide the esoteric content. This code is the traditional code of the alchemists; it is a phonetic code that is nearly impossible for normal readers to deal with, since normal readers do not read phonetically. Even when alerted to this code, it is difficult for the normal reader to handle the decoding. It also seems that the code is paradoxical, since one seems to be required to know what is being said in order to determine the hidden content. However, since Rawlings provides the Gurdjieffian doctrine of the moon’s influence near the conclusion of the novel, there is some help in the novel towards understanding what is being imparted in the hidden levels. Rawlings’s approach to the code is comparatively minimalist compared to Zora Neale Hurston’s novels. Rawlings uses the names of her characters as clues to the way the phonetic code must be read. For instance, Cleve is her way of writing “evil.” And Cleve is, indeed, and evil character. Cleve is associated with the moon in looking white, round, and pasty. As I pointed out above, no one is going to read Cleve as “evil,” since the normal way of reading is to consider the order of the letters always in one direction, and since no one reads one letter as indicating another: once this arrangement is understood, it is habit that prevents the alerted reader from making out the more difficult combinations. At the same time, Rawlings tries to instruct the reader: she uses the names Jim and Martin Posey to show that the “m” and the “n” are equivalent letters—for both names, Jim Posey and Martin Posey, deliver the coded word “impose.” Kezzy and Zeke seem to be an attempt to teach the reader the idea that letters do not have to be in the expected order to make the word “key”—ignoring the z and reading phonetically: key and kee.
The making of moonshine parallels the “art” of the spiritual alchemists—whose retort resembles the moonshiner’s “outfit,” as Rawlings refers to the moonshiner’s still. The alchemist uses the still to achieve enlightenment, which is referred to in alchemy as The Stone. The stone gives immortality. Whiskey (usquebaugh) is itself a word meaning “water of life.” Cleve the moon’s vampire goes about stealing the water of life, the symbol of spiritual knowledge and immortality. We can alos connct the constant concern with eating in the novel with the Gurdjieffian concept that unless one escapes the moon’s influence, the moon will “eat” you. This doctrine of food is the core of the whole cosmic problem: in the 1920 the “food” that the Earth provided to the Moon was in the form of mass death—such as from the World War, and the Moon requires food of a higher vibration. The man-as-food idea was borrowed for the film The Matrix, so to that extent it is a somewhat familiar esoteric concept. Admittedly, this all becomes murky in the novel, so a more careful analysis needs to be applied.
The amazing thing is that anyone can write a novel while producing the required esoteric effects. The names Orage, Gurdjieff, and Ouspensky, appear countless times in the novel. I won’t bother to point them out, but the novel is essentially a repetition of these names, one after another, and even superimposed—all running in any direction and using any manner of phonetic suggestion. Other names also appear less frequently, such as Jean Toomer’s name.
On the surface level the novel is beautifully written, and only towards the end does the esoteric material tend to take over and disturb the progress of the narrative. Since the novel is not about the creation of the superman, Lant is plunged suddenly into confusion. His name is actually Jack O’ Lantern, and this indicates that he has a light within. In the early chapters he is admirable, moral, and shows many talents. Toward the end he cannot see the truth any more. His world seems to be collapsing and one of the topics of discussion is how to live and how to restore their world. Read literally, the novel suffers from the esoteric message that the world can be saved through the esoteric Work. But as a one-dimensional novel, there seems to be a conflict between the levels that comes into play and makes the end less than satisfying. Lant suddenly falls apart and he can’t even decide how to get rid of Cleve’s body. Of course, since we do not know how to rid the world of Evil, this makes sense on the allegorical level.
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s novel South Moon Under is a spiritual allegory based on the teachings of the modern mystic George Ivanovich Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff’s teachings were disseminated in New York during the 1920s by the British editor A.R. Orage. Orage enlisted a large number of writers, artists, intellectuals, and other creative individuals into the Gurdjieff Work. Though it has not previously been part of her biography, it is apparent from reading the novel that Rawlings was one of this group. Under Orage’s direction many modern writers produced esoteric novels that in some way incorporated Gurdjieff’s teachings. This practice was followed out of their belief that unless a sufficient number of people of higher consciousness could be created by Gurdjieff’s esoteric school the entire civilization of the Earth would be destroyed. One of the means for recruiting more adherents was the production of novels that contained both an invitation to join the group and esoteric doctrines that would perhaps survive this coming fall. There is some ambiguity here as to what the downfall would look like, for in Hurston’s novels there is the suggestion that in lieu of the failure of mankind another species might rise to the level of civilization. The Gurdjiefian interpreter P.D. Ouspensky (See In Search of the Miraculous) records Gurdjieff’s suggestion that ants were once more highly evolved and were of a vastly greater size but were reduced when they failed to provide the needed spiritual food for the next level of life. These doctrines may be suggested by the final image of the novel where Kezzy has her children look up at a mother squirrel-cat on a branch above their boat.
In all of the Oragean novels a code is used to hide the esoteric content. This code is the traditional code of the alchemists; it is a phonetic code that is nearly impossible for normal readers to deal with, since normal readers do not read phonetically. Even when alerted to this code, it is difficult for the normal reader to handle the decoding. It also seems that the code is paradoxical, since one seems to be required to know what is being said in order to determine the hidden content. However, since Rawlings provides the Gurdjieffian doctrine of the moon’s influence near the conclusion of the novel, there is some help in the novel towards understanding what is being imparted in the hidden levels. Rawlings’s approach to the code is comparatively minimalist compared to Zora Neale Hurston’s novels. Rawlings uses the names of her characters as clues to the way the phonetic code must be read. For instance, Cleve is her way of writing “evil.” And Cleve is, indeed, and evil character. Cleve is associated with the moon in looking white, round, and pasty. As I pointed out above, no one is going to read Cleve as “evil,” since the normal way of reading is to consider the order of the letters always in one direction, and since no one reads one letter as indicating another: once this arrangement is understood, it is habit that prevents the alerted reader from making out the more difficult combinations. At the same time, Rawlings tries to instruct the reader: she uses the names Jim and Martin Posey to show that the “m” and the “n” are equivalent letters—for both names, Jim Posey and Martin Posey, deliver the coded word “impose.” Kezzy and Zeke seem to be an attempt to teach the reader the idea that letters do not have to be in the expected order to make the word “key”—ignoring the z and reading phonetically: key and kee.
The making of moonshine parallels the “art” of the spiritual alchemists—whose retort resembles the moonshiner’s “outfit,” as Rawlings refers to the moonshiner’s still. The alchemist uses the still to achieve enlightenment, which is referred to in alchemy as The Stone. The stone gives immortality. Whiskey (usquebaugh) is itself a word meaning “water of life.” Cleve the moon’s vampire goes about stealing the water of life, the symbol of spiritual knowledge and immortality. We can alos connct the constant concern with eating in the novel with the Gurdjieffian concept that unless one escapes the moon’s influence, the moon will “eat” you. This doctrine of food is the core of the whole cosmic problem: in the 1920 the “food” that the Earth provided to the Moon was in the form of mass death—such as from the World War, and the Moon requires food of a higher vibration. The man-as-food idea was borrowed for the film The Matrix, so to that extent it is a somewhat familiar esoteric concept. Admittedly, this all becomes murky in the novel, so a more careful analysis needs to be applied.
The amazing thing is that anyone can write a novel while producing the required esoteric effects. The names Orage, Gurdjieff, and Ouspensky, appear countless times in the novel. I won’t bother to point them out, but the novel is essentially a repetition of these names, one after another, and even superimposed—all running in any direction and using any manner of phonetic suggestion. Other names also appear less frequently, such as Jean Toomer’s name.
On the surface level the novel is beautifully written, and only towards the end does the esoteric material tend to take over and disturb the progress of the narrative. Since the novel is not about the creation of the superman, Lant is plunged suddenly into confusion. His name is actually Jack O’ Lantern, and this indicates that he has a light within. In the early chapters he is admirable, moral, and shows many talents. Toward the end he cannot see the truth any more. His world seems to be collapsing and one of the topics of discussion is how to live and how to restore their world. Read literally, the novel suffers from the esoteric message that the world can be saved through the esoteric Work. But as a one-dimensional novel, there seems to be a conflict between the levels that comes into play and makes the end less than satisfying. Lant suddenly falls apart and he can’t even decide how to get rid of Cleve’s body. Of course, since we do not know how to rid the world of Evil, this makes sense on the allegorical level.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 5, 2024
Lost Americana
Saga of three+ generations set in the same “scrubland” of early 1900’s central Florida as "The Yearling.” A seemingly realistic view into a culture so unlike our current urban and internet based society. These families scratch out a living in a fairly untamed region of Florida subsisting on farming/veggie gardens, huntin', fishin', 'n' trappin', as well as, inevitably, moonshinin'. Ms Rawlings captured the almost foreign-sounding Appalachian dialect perfectly, although I had to puzzle out some of the dialogue from its context and look up items on Google. Fantastic descriptions of unspoiled flora and fauna - and scenes of breathtaking imagery. I can recommend this book to those who have the patience to deal with unconventional dialogue and want to know how "old Florida" used to be. The rewards are passages of beautiful poetic prose.
Saga of three+ generations set in the same “scrubland” of early 1900’s central Florida as "The Yearling.” A seemingly realistic view into a culture so unlike our current urban and internet based society. These families scratch out a living in a fairly untamed region of Florida subsisting on farming/veggie gardens, huntin', fishin', 'n' trappin', as well as, inevitably, moonshinin'. Ms Rawlings captured the almost foreign-sounding Appalachian dialect perfectly, although I had to puzzle out some of the dialogue from its context and look up items on Google. Fantastic descriptions of unspoiled flora and fauna - and scenes of breathtaking imagery. I can recommend this book to those who have the patience to deal with unconventional dialogue and want to know how "old Florida" used to be. The rewards are passages of beautiful poetic prose.
December 5, 2017
A good book--it falls down in the ratings because I have read good books lately. The author wrote the book "The Yearling" which I have not read. The book is set among "hill billies" in the Everglades (I realize there are no hills there). It's kind of neat to see the setting of the book. It's basically a story (interesting but not compelling), without a plot. I don't really mean to disrecommend this book--it was recommended to me by a friend.
June 7, 2023
DIFFICULT READING . . . . . .
The colloquialisms and / or slang used throughout this novel makes it quite difficult to Get through ! Enhancing story about MOONSHINING
in the backwoods of Florida. To me... This was an ENJOYABLE READ ! . . .
but difficult and took more time than usual . NOT RECOMMENDED for a casual reader ! For a Hard - Core THINKER-OF- A- READER ---- YES...
VERY RECOMMENDED ! ! ! !
The colloquialisms and / or slang used throughout this novel makes it quite difficult to Get through ! Enhancing story about MOONSHINING
in the backwoods of Florida. To me... This was an ENJOYABLE READ ! . . .
but difficult and took more time than usual . NOT RECOMMENDED for a casual reader ! For a Hard - Core THINKER-OF- A- READER ---- YES...
VERY RECOMMENDED ! ! ! !
November 25, 2023
Ok. Very authentic and the dialect is difficult to read.
Well carved characters and yet I couldn't much attach to any one of them. The Yearling was much better.
But if you are from Florida now as it is SO much more densely populated than then or have no knowledge of scrub country Florida that is NOT swamp or sea front from this much earlier period etc.- than this might be more interesting to read than it was for me.
Well carved characters and yet I couldn't much attach to any one of them. The Yearling was much better.
But if you are from Florida now as it is SO much more densely populated than then or have no knowledge of scrub country Florida that is NOT swamp or sea front from this much earlier period etc.- than this might be more interesting to read than it was for me.
October 27, 2025
Lush nature descriptions of Florida scrub lands provide the background for this multi-generational tale of a moonshiner family who live off the land. Their way of life is gradually hemmed in by Prohibition enforcement and game laws.
The novel provides some understanding of the source of anti-government sympathies and includes much ethnological study of folkways, including dialect. However, there is no shielding from casual cruelty that is part of living off the land.
The novel provides some understanding of the source of anti-government sympathies and includes much ethnological study of folkways, including dialect. However, there is no shielding from casual cruelty that is part of living off the land.
April 17, 2020
Because all of the dialog was written in a dialect, it was difficult to read. Rawlings is a wonderfully descriptive writer and excellent character developer. It takes place in Northeastern Florida when it was very primitive and undeveloped swamps and hammocks. Because I now live in this area, I found it pertinent and very interesting.
September 10, 2025
As the intro says, this is a novel and not a history. However, I knew nothing about the scrubland in Florida or the people and their way of life, but her description is so detailed that I feel I learned a lot. I would not like to live there with snakes and alligators, but the people made a life in that landscape. A lot of that land is now protected.
October 25, 2017
I recognize this as being a good story but just not my style of book. It was hard to read as it was written in old Florida cracker lingo. But the tales of Florida settlers was interesting and I am looking forward to visiting the author's home here in Florida.
January 16, 2020
Interested in Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings? Join the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Society!! We meet regularly and discuss ALL things MKR. For details, visit www.RawlingsSociety.org.
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