Reviewed by BarbTX,
I just finished reading LAMB IN HIS BOSOM by Caroline Miller. The novel won the first Pulitzer Prize by a Georgia (state of) writer. Miller won the prize in 1934. It was because of this novel, an Macmillan editor, Harold Latham decided to try to find others about the South. He found Margaret Mitchell and GONE WITH THE WIND. GWTW won the Pulitzer in 1937. Mitchell was also a native Georgian.
LAMB IN HIS BOSOM is very, very different from GWTW though. This novel deals with the day to day struggles of the poor of the backwoods. There was no Tara in this book, only cabins, lots of children (many lost to disease or accidents), the hard scrabble way the people had to make their way just to survive day to day.
One of the things of particular interest to me in reading this book was to “listen” to the regional dialect. Some of the words I had to google, others even google could no longer find easily. I could figure out a “painter” was a panther, etc. though. It must have been so frightening to live in the swampy backwoods in a wooden cabin listening to the calls of the animals in the dark. Fear and superstition must have haunted many a lone woman caring for her many babies/young children in an age when only herbs and prayers were available to save them.
I guess like many Americans, I think of the WEST first when I hear the word frontier. LAMB IN HIS BOSOM brought it home to me there were “pioneers” living, and dying, in southern frontier regions such as south Georgia long before anyone even thought of the Oregon Trail or heard the cry of “Gold.”
This book is not available locally so it has to be requested through Interlibrary Loan.
Additional comments:
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- Hi Judy,
Think you will enjoy reading this piece of regional literature. It really opened my eyes to what things must have been like for these people. I have seen (or read) westerns or war stories where a fellow traveler or bloody Army surgeon would have to amputate a limb to save a person’s life, but don’t remember one where a wife does the work. One of the scenes in this book has the husband appealing to his wife to just cut “hit” off (referring to his leg). All she had to work with was a kitchen knife, but I suppose she could have used the same axe that caused the problem. Will not say more as I do not want to commit “spoiler alert”, but am wondering how many people could cut off another person’s leg with a bunch of children hanging on her skirts???
In the story the wife uses turpentine to try to disinfect the wound. This scene speaks to me because as a child I was running around barefoot and stepped on something and an by the time I was taken to a doctor, the tell tale symptoms of blood poisoning were already above my ankle. Had I been born just a few decades earlier, my injury might have been a death sentence or. at least, require amputation.
- BarbTX Says:
November 15, 2009 at 10:37 am | Reply edit
Just saw the book listed somewhere and decided it would be interesting to see what the “poor folk” were going through in the backwoods while the city folk on the Coast led totally different lives. The city folk didn’t have much better medical care though I bet. Looked up the “bloody flux” which carried away some the chilluns in the novel. It was mentioned in GWTW as well. It is an old time definition of dysentery. Back when I was doing more genealogical research, I found dysentery listed as a cause of death on a death certificate of an adult ancestor. It probably killed as many Civil War soldiers (especially Confederates) as muskets. Can’t prove that as I have not seen any stats but their camp conditions were deplorable. The ancestor who died of this condition, however, was not a soldier at the time.
- Fran Says:
November 15, 2009 at 5:59 pm | Reply edit
Barb, you make this book sound fascinating. Do you think it would make a good book group discussion?
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- BarbTX Says:
November 15, 2009 at 8:07 pm | Reply edit
- BarbTX Says:
Fran,
I think it would be hard to do. I got my book through Interlibrary Loan though there are used books on Amazon in the $25.00 range. Still, the members would really have to look to find a way to get a book as they could not find it at our libraries or bookstore. I think GWTW so over shadowed this book that it essentially went out of print.
There is also the problem of slavery which is still a sensitive issue. While the poor whites living in the backwoods did not own slaves, there is some dialog in the book where one of the children speaks of it to his mother. He saw how downtrodden his mother was and wished she could have slaves to help her out. Further, he wants her to be able to treat the slaves the way the ladies in the fancy dresses living on the Coast treat their slaves. There is very little mention of slavery though as they were not much in the picture in the backwoods. The people were too involved in their own form of slavery: to the land, the animals they tended, and to the many children under their care. There is some sentiment alleged toward the back of the book, that at the time of the Civil War these poor whites did not believe this war should involve them. Rather, the thinking seemed to be this was a war to protect the rights of the large plantation owners who were in danger of losing slave labor. The whites still went off to war, of course, but many did not think it served their own interests as when the men left the women had to try to pick up the slack on the farms and they were already working hard.
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- BarbTX Says:
November 17, 2009 at 5:24 pm edit
- BarbTX Says:
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The last line should have read “poor whites” as this was the population Miller wrote about in her book. I am not sure her characters, as written, would have had a good grasp on such concepts as “state’s rights” so that is why I made this statement.
I saw the book listed somewhere and decided it would be interesting to see what the “poor folk” were going through in the backwoods while the city folk on the Coast led totally different lives. The city folk didn’t have much better medical care though I bet. Looked up the “bloody flux” which carried away some the chilluns in the novel. It was mentioned in GWTW as well .It is an old time definition of dysentery. Back when I was doing more genealogical research, I found dysentery listed as a cause of death on a death certificate of an adult ancestor. It probably killed as many Civil War soldiers (especially Confederates) as muskets. Can’t prove that as I have not seen any stats, but their camp conditions were deplorable.
- BarbTX Says:
November 17, 2009 at 5:34 pm | Reply edit
One last observation about this book before I quit. I was not aware people in the southern backwoods used oxen to clear/work their land and for transportation of their goods (to the Coast, for example). I always assumed they used mules…
