EPISODE IN PALMETTO

The latest in Caldwell's long line of overwhelmingly nubile girls is heroine Vernona. She is the new school teacher in the small ""lowcountry"" town of Palmetto, and it takes her just two weeks to stir up every available man- ""smoke them out"" as her landlady's husband puts it- make them forget their inhibitions and go after what they really want, which does not inevitably mean Vernona. And she herself has her own true character smoked out into the open for the first time when she is faced with the choice of becoming what one of the wives calls her- a high-class prostitute- or marrying a rich but dull and hardworking farmer. The usual Tobacco Road cast, complete down to the sixteen year old boy in love with his new teacher, there is again the sure control over his material- the undeviating interest, the adherence to a particular theme distasteful as it may be.