Customer Reviews

Lum and Abner: Rural America and the Golden Age of Radio (New Directions in Southern History)

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Hall's introduction is a little to brief, or maybe not brief enough. The selling point is the transcripts of the early shows; indeed, 'a treasure trove'. He describes them as 'dark' -- I am quite series about my title. If Goff and Lauck had continued in the manner of their lengthy convolved political near-murder tales of December 1933 through January 1934, Lum and Abner would now be recalled for their portrayal of a wry view of the upper south.

I enjoyed getting this book and will be giving it to my father. The book is pretty good in that it gives you a lot of info about the Lum and Abner radio show. I was interested in this book because my father had told me before how his dad used to really enjoy listening to Lum and Abner on the radio during the 40's. The bad thing about the book is that the "book" part is very short, only about 45 pages I think and then most of the rest of the book is scripts from the show. Those are fine but I doubt I will ever read through more than one or two of them. I also bought a DVD through Amazon that had audio of almost all of their shows which I have enjoyed listening to. The book could have been better if it had gone more into the details of what families back in the 30's and 40's listened to on the radio and the connection between the radio and the public back then. The book was ok but it could have been better and offered more insight. The title says something about rural american and the golden age of radio but there were not too many facts, figures or details about that subject. I enjoyed this book though and I guess I will just need to search for a more definitive history of radio if I want to learn more about the major media of those days.

While it is quite a very good resource on Lum and Abner, I believe it's a bit over-priced for what the final product is. The author did tend to use vocabulary that causes one to have to run to a dictionary to determine what is being said.
Other than those 2 draw-backs, again, I liked the book very well.