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We Are the Living

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We Are the Living
First edition
AuthorErskine Caldwell
LanguageEnglish
Published1933 (1933)
PublisherViking Press
Publication placeUSA

We Are the Living is a 1933 collection of short stories by Erskine Caldwell, comprising some of his earlier works.

Background

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Viking Press published the collection in September 1933. 16 of its 20 stories were previously published in various magazines, while four -- "The Medicine Man," "Meddlesome Jack," "The Grass Fire," and "A Woman in the House" -- were new.[1]

Some stories in the collection are humorous or satirical, while others are lyrical, romantic and/or tragic. Several of them are laid against the background of the lives of ordinary people in the contemporary US South,[2] the social milieu most familiar to the author; some are specifically located in his home state of Georgia.

Contents

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The stories in the book include:

Critical reception

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Biographer Wayne Mixon wrote that We are the Living largely "went unnoticed in the southern press." Mixon suggests that the inclusion of "August Afternoon" -- a story about a lazy white farmer, a drifter who seduces the farmer's wife, and his Black field hand who refuses Vic's order to accost him -- was to blame.[2]

TIME magazine, reviewing the collection in 1933, highlighted Caldwell's more bawdy, humorous stories as standouts. Of those, they wrote: "Mark Twain would have roared over [these stories] -- in private."[3]

References

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  1. ^ MacDonald, Scott (1981). Critical Essays on Erskine Caldwell. G-K. Hall. ISBN 9780816182992. Retrieved 14 April 2023.
  2. ^ a b Mixon, Wayne (1995). The People's Writer: Erskine Caldwell and the South. University of Virginia Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-8139-1627-9. Retrieved 14 April 2023.
  3. ^ "Books: U. S. Humorist". TIME. 2 October 1933. Retrieved 14 April 2023.
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