The Bastard

by Erskine Caldwell

A Sizzling Classic of Lust and Tragedy

A REAL BASTARD!

His mother gave birth to him on a hot August day in her carny tent. She cursed through her labor and would have killed the baby if the roustabouts hadn't tied her down.

Until he ran away, Gene lived in a shanty with an old black woman. He knew his mother was a harlot, but he didn't know or care who his father was. No one knew...there had been too many men.

He took love where he found it - at the carnival, the jail, the mill - and he killed when he felt like it.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Novels

128 pages

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Erskine 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_...

Reviews

[Russell Bittner · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The cocaine was entering a final stage.” (p. 53) It could just be my ignorance, but I believe this is the first time I’ve ever seen mention of this particular drug in any literature of the last century. I frankly had no idea that it had a place in any part of American society—never mind in the deep, rural South—as far back as the year in which this, Erskine Caldwell’s first novel, was published (in 1929).

Much of the material and many of the characters Erskine was to populate his later works with are just coming to light in this first novel. But it is a sub-story that takes place in roughly the last third of the novel that is perhaps the most disturbing. I won’t give it away except to say that it put me in mind of David Lynch’s film, “Erasurehead,” and I really have to wonder whether Lynch didn’t take this short novel as an inspiration—or at least as a starting point—for his film.

In any case, The Bastard is well worth reading—as flawed as it may be in many respects—if for no other reason than to understand the thinking and writing of the young writer who would one day become the author of such classics as God’s Little Acre and Tobacco Road.

RRB
Brooklyn, NY
17 December 2017

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, William Faulkner warned of the writer who "labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands." In The Bastard, Erskine Caldwell writes of the glands. Viewed through the lens of noir history, Caldwell's debut novel seems a precursor to the episodic realism practiced by P. J. Wolfson and Don Tracy in their novels of the early 1930s, but Caldwell's characters are, if anything, even more unrepentantly savage. Perhaps Gene Morgan, The Bastard's title character, is meant to have our sympathy, yet he thinks nothing of raping a young runaway who is being held in the local jail. In this world of the glands, such events are treated as so unremarkable that when we finally get a glimpse of Gene's heart, we cannot help but wonder if it is a gland in disguise. Noir doom is often driven by the glands.

[Ronald Koltnow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Erskine Caldwell's first novel, novella really, is a tough read. Gene Morgan is a bastard, by birth and by inclination, a murdering, raping monster of a man. Caldwell is what you read when Faulkner seems too light and Nelson Algren too optimistic. In fact, THE BASTARD resembles Algren's SOMEBODY IN BOOTS in it's episodic structure and its elemental tone. Caldwell is a realist with a 20/20 view into the black hearts of people who have gone over the edge of poverty and alienation. The volume I read also included his story "The Sacrilege of Alan Kent," a poetical, experimental study of a man's life. It is as unrelenting as THE BASTARD.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty horrific. Well written but not for the light hearted.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another wonderfully dark and disturbing book by Caldwell. You have certain elements synonymous to Caldwell; sex, prostitution, deprivation and race. But yet again, Caldwell finds a different way to represent this.

The story follows that of Gene, trying to find his place in life, moving from job to job. Working at a local mill, the analogy to Steinbeck’s “Canary Row” is eerily shocking.

Similarly, what came out of this book is similar to “The Sacrilege of Alan Kent”. You are aware of race issues in the Deep South in the US through Caldwell’s works, however, through these works the shocking brutality of the situation is rammed home to you; often in only a few paragraphs.

What is new to this book that I am not aware of in previous Caldwell works is raising and talking about drugs, in this case cocaine.

Life moves on for Gene and moves into a new phase of his life; marriage with new difficulties, issues and problems with shocking results.

The book shows and highlights the difficulties an individual had to deal and cope with; often with very brutal results.

[Gibson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Antipasto di stile

Primo romanzo dato alle stampe da Caldwell, racchiude già in sé i semi di quelle tematiche che esploderanno compiutamente nelle pubblicazioni successive.
Qui, per quanto l'autore riesca a trasmettere la tensione sessuale, il razzismo, la violenza quasi come unici mezzi di interazione tra gli sbandati che popolano queste pagine — gente che non si domanda mai cosa è giusto o sbagliato, che conosce solo un materialismo primitivo e privo di orpelli —, gli manca ancora la capacità di saperli dirigere.

[nomeacaso · Rating 4 out of 5]

I suoi romanzi sono catastrofici, depravati, corrotti, scorretti. Per questo nessuno ha più il coraggio di pubblicare Erskine Caldwell.

Crudele e meraviglioso.

[Ronald Weston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Erskine Caldwell's The Bastard, his first novel, is a brutal, but interesting work. Compared to the somewhat slight, humorous, ribald short stories he was writing around the time of its composition, this short novel is of a very different hue. It is dark, violent, depressing, and quite unsettling. Caldwell was trying to find his way as a writer, and this first long work is somewhat floundering, with little structure, a wandering storyline, interesting flashes of dialogue, and at times a sense of experimentation. It is more of an extended character study peppered with slices of brutality where murder and rape are sudden and disturbing. Even amid the noirish feel there are bits of humor and in the last few pages a surprising sense of introspection and pathos. I'm glad I finally read The Bastard but it will not be my favorite of his novels.

[Mr Gerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Sacrilege of Alan Kent. A series of diary type entries / paragraphs about observations and thoughts. Not linked or forming a bigger picture. Interesting and easy enough to get through if a little bewildering. This is followed by his first two books – The Bastard and Poor Fool. The latter two are now very expensive to buy on Amazon or E Bay so this book was an absolute bargain.
Tobacco Road and God’s Little Acre followed and made his name. They were comedic books with added titilation. Most of his books after that were much more hardhitting, sexual and violent. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading them all. Caldwell was a very talented story writer and holds nothing back- which may offend some but I love his style of writing and the excitement of the tale.
Journeyman is a great read but the Bastard is right up there too. All his books are worth a read and each is different if not for the faint hearted.

[Nick LeBlanc · Rating 3 out of 5]

This came out the same year as Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, but where Big Willy focuses on the dying gasps of a southern dynastic family, Caldwell focuses on a despicable street urchin that never had a chance. Both books are brutal, violent, disturbing, and surprisingly resonant. This 100 year old story is shockingly unpleasant. Rape, murder, cuckoldry, infanticide, drug use and abuse, STIs, you name it. Social commentary under the guise of a cheap and nasty pulp thriller. I can't really recommend this to anyone. But it is a fascinating artifact of the time and a chilling reminder that America has always eaten its young.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erskine Caldwell's first novel, The Bastard, is extremely dark for 1929. It reminds me more of the 1920s my grandfather described to me as opposed to what I read in books about the decade. Appearing as it did nearly ten months before the stock market crash, it predates and anticipates the literature of the great depression, such as that of Steinbeck and Faulkner.

An extremely short book, it usually appears in tandem with Poor Fool.

[Suvonova Mohigul · Rating 1 out of 5]

I cannot readhis book

[Andi Chorley · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first Erskine Caldwell was also his first novel published in 1929. Another grim gripping read! I can see why this one unlike Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre was not adapted for film.

[Leonardo Di · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes is good sonetimes is shit, this book in his first part is very interesting and dark, but in the second part is boring and inconclusive.

[MauroMC · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is tough.
Direct writing. Violent themes. Extreme actions.
And yet the most tender feelings breach even the wildest soul of the protagonist.
But Caldwell knows his own reality too well. Happy ending is not part of his world.