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FOLLOW THE DRINKING GOURD by Frances Gaither

FOLLOW THE DRINKING GOURD

By

Pub Date: March 26th, 1940
Publisher: Macmillan

The story of the land, rather than of the individuals tied to it, in a plantation tale set on the Alabama River. An absentee landlord leaves the plantation to a succession of overseers and slaves; he loads it up with mortgages and debts; and his son, brought up to luxury, is left with nothing. He tries his hand at working the land, but he too follows the easiest path, and the place goes to the bank. Some good bits in an unromantic treatment of plantation life before the Civil War, with intimate study of actual process of management and the working of the system. A good record, rather than a good story.