Customer Reviews

Red Hills and Cotton: An Upcountry Memory (Southern Classics Series)

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An English professor I had in college once berated me at a poker game for recommending this book. He had never heard of it. I gave him a copy. I can only imagine the sardonic moment in which he finally picked it up. He loved it. The book was given to me by a Capitol Hill policeman from North Carolina. This is the sort of book that will help Yankee's (like me)to understand the Old South; a truly liberal and enlightened view. This is one of those books, whose author was struck down early in life, that makes you wonder what might have come from his pen had he lived. These are memoirs, memoirs of the old folks that made up the backbone of the South after the Civil War up to the Great Depression, real, living people whom, thorough these pages, become a delight to get acquainted with.

This is one of my all time favorites. Being raised on a cotton farm in Texas in the depression, I can relate to it entirely. It showed me the close relationship of all southern people and the common heritage even though our farms were a 1,000 miles apart. Many of Ben's relatives were just like mine. And cotton was King. It was the main topic of conversation all year.

From a member of the next generation with recollections and experiences of a similar nature, I can assure you that this book gives a highly accurate account of what it was like growing up in the rural South. The next best book of this nature, and one similar to it is "Run With the Horsemen", by Ferol Sams. Although "Run With the Horsemen" is classed as a novel, it accurately portrays life in the rural South during the Great Depression. Please don't miss reading either of these great books concerning events that occured at a special time and in a very special place.

I live in the 'red hills' of this book. It tells me of a time when my mom was young. She had this book (hardcover, 1st edition, she thinks) and loaned it out. Well....you know it never came home. She was happy to have this copy, even though it wasn't her original one that she bought new when it came out.

My first contact with "Red Hills and Cotton" was in 1973; I was 4 years old, and my mother had been given the book as a birthday present by my aunt. When I was old enough, I read the book for myself. Ben Robertson is buried in my hometown, and I recognized much of the geography of which he writes. I also recognize much of the human spirit about which he writes - the spirit of the Southern small farmer.

Although many of the circumstances of the South have changed since this writing (in the early 1940s), the nature of the people has not changed to a great extent. We may not work the fields each day, but our love of God, family, homeland, adventure, loyalty -- all these things remain close to our hearts and lives. Ben Robertson would still have reason to be proud. Would that he had lived longer and written more!