Reviews

• An excellent story of real life in the back woods of South Georgia

  I live in the area where Caroline Miller based the location of her book, Lamb In His Bosom. My family migrated here long ago. It is still a farm & country location where time moves a little more slowly than in the hustle & bustle of big city life. That is why I enjoy living here. People still carry on many of the neighborly acts of long ago. The setting of her book is before the War Between The States. The families she writes about are poor people, as far as money goes. Not everyone in the South had plantations & slaves. In fact, there were more poor people than wealthy ones. Life was slower then, which makes the flow of the book mirror these times. This in no way causes any page to be less interesting than other pages. Some of the older words she used were words these families used in those days & brought over from the old countries like Scotland, England, Ireland & etc. A few reviewers have complained of these flowery & strange words. I find them interesting & researched them for their origins & definitions. 150 years from now what will people think of the words we use today...? Also interesting are their home remedies, which were past down through the generations . By our medical standards today we know that some were helpful & some dangerous. There were very few doctors, if any, & very little money for most people at that time. It is a wonderful book with a good story line. In fact, Caroline stated that many of the stories in this book were actual stories she had heard from her family, older friends & older people she interviewed while buying eggs & chickens in our area . Since she was born in 1903 (or there about) in Waycross, GA., she interviewed people who had lived through these days as children & stated she didn't know where fact & fiction stopped & ended.. She wrote the book while her first husband was an educator in Baxley, GA., which is a little over 40 miles from her birthplace of Waycross/Ware County, GA.. In the early 1990's our city of Baxley had a Caroline Miller Day. She was invited, but unable to attend due to her health & advanced age. Her family sent a lovely letter. My mother had this book long ago, but it is missing. I ordered mine from Amazon. Buy the book, you'll not regret your purchase.

• Tough times.

  The hardships endured in the backwoods of America's south by poor white farmers.

• A Novel of Georgia Pioneers

  The Pulitzer Prize for fiction generally is awarded to novels that celebrate the diverse character or ideals of American life. In 1934, "Lamb in his Bosom", an unusual first novel by an unknown southern writer, Caroline Miller, received the Prize and became a best-seller. Miller (1903 -- 1992) continued to write through her life, but she never duplicated her initial success. "Lamb in his Bosom" is a historical novel set in rural south Georgia from about 1840 to the end of the Civil War. The setting is rarely explored in history or in literature; Miller brings it to life. Pioneers from North Carolina and Kentucky migrated to this remote area, full of swamps and pine forests and established hardscrabble farms. The population was sparse and life was hard. Miller's novel covers the lives of several generations of the pioneering farmers. Her primary character is a woman Cean Smith, who at 15 marries an older man, Lonzo, and begins life with him in a cabin six miles from her family, the nearest neighbors. She helps Lonzo with the farmwork, keeps the house, and over the marriage bears 13 children, 8 of which survive. The farm is self-sufficient, run entirely by husband and wife. There were no slaves in this part of Georgia, whose population consisted of small, yeoman farmers. Once each year Lonzo and other men travel 80 miles to the Georgia "Coast" to engage in barter. Miller threads Cean's story into the life of the community, particularly her parents and siblings. Her brother, Lias, marries a woman he meets on the coast, Margot, whom his family fears will be of questionable virtue. Problems in the marriage result instead from Lias' own wandering, violence, and unfaithfulness. Miller recreates beautifully the dialect of the place and time. The speech patterns are worth preserving and draw the reader into the story while making for slow reading. Miller offers beautifully descriptive passages of the nature and wildness that formed the settlers' lot -- including the swamps, capricious weather, animals, and snakes. She also offers a convincing portrayal of the rigors of farm life, from planting to cutting wood, to travel, and, especially bearing and raising many children. The book centers on the travails of life. During her first pregnancy, Cean is bitten by a rattlesnake and nearly dies. The pregnancies are always life-threatening. Many people die during the course of the book. Injuries from animals, momentary carelessness with an ax, and fire, for example, are rampant. Miller shows the gradual development and growth of the region. As the Civil War approaches, the population increases, and more formalized religion and education come into the area. When her husband dies, Cean gradually develops a relationship with a New Light minister, Dermid O'Connor. The religious nature of the simple farm pioneers receives much emphasis in the book. "Lamb in his Bosom" offers a realistic historical portrayal of a small, isolated area of rural America. The characters in the book have rude, harsh lives. Miller develops them with a great deal of sympathy and affection; she clearly considers these early Georgia pioneers as the salt of the earth and she effectively conveys her portrayals to the reader. Miller's book had a considerable influence on Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind". There is little of the romantic in Miller's book and the characters and stories in the two novels are far apart. Miller's novel had been almost forgotten before it was reissued in this this 1990's edition with an afterward by literary scholar Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. The book describes a specific place and moment of American time but it echoes something universal in American experience and in Americans' visions of themselves. The book deserved the Pulitzer Prize it received in 1934. Readers with an interest in the literature of the American South will enjoy getting to know this book. Robin Friedman

• A vivid and believable story of America's early immigrant settlers.

  I imagined this story as though I'd been alive to interview my immigrant grandparents of three generations ago. It's a vivid description of struggles of taming new lands where Native Americans and wildlife cut the first trails. No wonder it won a Pulitzer. This story will live in me always.

• ... Pulitzer Prize winner from the 30's and is an excellent book. I have read it about every twenty ...

  This is a Pulitzer Prize winner from the 30's and is an excellent book. I have read it about every twenty years because it is that good. The description of the land and of the flora and fauna of that part of Georgia is just beautiful, almost like poetry. Of course, some of it is not politically correct but nothing true to life was at that time in the South. Also, It is worth it to read how the early settlers were strong and sturdy and survivors and tried the best they could to follow a moral code that was taken from their faith without the blessing of a convenient worship place. And with women's rights, etc. of today, it should be read to see how tough those women were. This was taken from local stories and memories and made into a work of fiction which is delightful but harsh to read. Both she and Margaret Mitchell were Georgia women but they drew an entirely different picture of the South. This story is about non-slaving holding good people. It should be required reading in schools.

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