An Hour Before Daylight (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "IF YOU LEAVE Savannah on the coast and travel on the only U.S. highway that goes almost straight westward across the state of Georgia, you..." (more)
Key Phrases: plow points, tenant families, Uncle Buddy, Jack Clark, Webster County (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Born on October 1, 1924, Jimmy Carter grew up on a Georgia farm during the Great Depression. In An Hour Before Daylight, the former president tells the story of his rural boyhood, and paints a sensitive portrait of America before the civil rights movement.

Carter describes--in glorious, if sometimes gory, detail--growing up on a farm where everything was done by either hand or mule: plowing fields, "mopping" cotton to kill pests, cutting sugar cane, shaking peanuts, or processing pork. He also describes the joys of walking barefoot ("this habit alone helped to create a sense of intimacy with the earth"), taking naps with his father on the porch after lunch, and hunting with slingshots and boomerangs with his playmates--all of whom were black. Carter was in constant contact with his black neighbors; he worked alongside them, ate in their homes, and often spent the night in the home of Rachel and Jack Clark, "on a pallet on the floor stuffed with corn shucks," when his parents were away. However, this intimacy was possible only on the farm. When young Jimmy and his best friend, A.D. Davis, went to town to see a movie, they waited for the train together, paid their 15 cents, and then separated into "white" and "colored" compartments. Once in Americus, they walked to the theater together, but separated again, with Jimmy buying a seat on the main floor or first balcony at the front door, and A.D. going around to the back door to buy his seat up in the upper balcony. After the movie, they returned home on another segregated train. "I don't remember ever questioning the mandatory racial separation, which we accepted like breathing or waking up in Archery every morning."

In this warm, almost sepia-toned narrative, Carter describes his relationships with his parents and with the five people--only two of whom were white--who most affected his early life. Best of all, however, Carter presents his sweetly nostalgic recollections of a lost America. --Sunny Delaney

From Booklist

Carter has written more than a dozen books since he left the White House; this vivid recollection of his Georgia childhood will probably be one of his most popular efforts. There are facts here--about the economics of farming during the Depression, the structure of sharecropping, and Georgia politics, for example--but the focus of Carter's narrative is the people who nurtured him on the farm and in Plains. Despite segregation, these people included African American neighbors as well as his own family, and Carter supplies lively portraits of many of the adults and children, black and white, who impressed him when he was little. Using a conversational tone, Carter wanders through the past, commenting on the weather and crop prices, local geography, chores and illnesses, adjusting to school, and learning to hunt and fish. Carter remains more popular as an ex-president than he was during his term of office, and his experiences are just different enough from those of most readers that his memoir should have broad appeal. Mary Carroll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st edition (January 11, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743211936
• ISBN-13: 978-0743211932
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #610,772 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

100 of 107 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars History Comes to Life, January 9, 2001

By A Customer

I never really knew the president until I read the book. It provided insight and valuable understanding into the development of his ideals and lifelong commitment to community. Every night as I tucked my three darling sons into bed, we would cast aside Harry Potter for Hour Before Daylight. What a wonderful way to share our history with the family.

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Jimmy Who?, March 8, 2003

By	Kim Gokce (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Hour Before Daylight : Memories of a Rural Boyhood (Paperback)

Had this engaging and conversational journey through President Carter's early days in Archer, Georgia been published prior to his '76 campaign, Americans would have understood better the thinking of the man they were to elect that year. Was his earnestness and honesty so surprising? This narrative strolls the reader through the gritty, but innocent, formative years of one of our country's most respected leaders.

A personal tribute to a place and the people that this man loves the most, the reader will find themselves enveloped in the minutiae of neighborhood scuttlebutt, hog slaughtering, Depression era agricultural economics, and of the (then) easy bigotry of the Deep South. The author lauds the passing of evils of the time and examines his own anxieties about the future of his family's generational farming heritage.

As a Georgian and as an American, I was delighted and entertained by President Carter's honesty and humor once again. Entertaining for all ages and a great introduction to rural life for young people. A fun & easy weekend read!

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, quick read but tedious in spots, October 24, 2007

By	Teddy Bird (Deer Creek Mesa, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Hour Before Daylight : Memories of a Rural Boyhood (Paperback)

I've been wanting to read one or more of President Carter's books for a long time and decided to begin with this one. While I agree that it is well-executed in the main, it doesn't score higher with me on a few grounds.

One: I felt there was a need for more fastidious editing. The book was by no means too long, but there was repetition and disordered content.

Two: Way too much detail in some of the more mundane and unpleasant sections, in particular discussions of minutiae of small-town agribusiness dealings as well as graphic detail of livestock issues including slaughtering and castrating. TMI.

Three: This is a half-hearted complaint, for I realize this isn't the book where these matters would likely be discussed considering the author has several other memoirs addressing other periods of his life (doesn't he?) In any case, I felt like the President did not discuss enough how his upbringing resulted in his being the man he is today as far as race relations are concerned. Lots of discussion about the relatively tolerant household in which he was raised, but lots of apology at the same time about how racism was ubiquitous at the time and not really perceived by his family or by others as a wrong to be righted. I don't know, I guess I'm rambling here, but I would have liked to have read content along the lines of "and these boyhood experiences shaped my perceptions in such a way that I wanted to make a difference in my public service career" and also I woulda liked to have read about how he connects his religious beliefs with his liberal leanings. Flesh out that relationship a bit more.

Just my 2 cents.

In any event, the book was a quick read and I am very glad I got around to reading it.