A review by wathohuc
The Store by Thomas S. Stribling
4.0
As for superior writing, I wouldn't rank this 1933 Pulitzer winner for fiction among the best. But it was an enjoyable read and its themes were complex and prodding enough to merit some accolades. Even still, I gave the book a four-star ranking for two reasons, the first having to do with the merits of the book itself and the second for its sociological value: (1) though it was not the work of a literary genius, it has very few, if any, discernible flaws. It's solid, though basic. (2) I found it extremely fascinating to read a book about post-abolition race relations in the deep south but written during a period in which Jim Crow was still very much the operating norm in the same deep south. The novel still has a very uncomfortable coziness with racist tropes and language that would be offensive to almost anyone in today's reality; but even within what we would consider to be a racist apologetic (i.e. the main character of the novel for whom a very empathetic portrayal is given, Col. Miltiades Vaiden, is also an unapologetic and bald-faced racist who even was Klan leader), there is a critique of race relations that one might even point to as being pro-abolitionist. In other words, in the Jim Crow reality of race relations in 1933 in the segregated south, this book might have been well-within the segregationist mainstream, but also one that might have also been considered sensitive to the complexities and injustices of race relations in the immediate post-emancipation south and a critique of a certain kind of continuation of slavery-like racial oppression that managed to linger after the emancipation proclamation.
Another fascinating thing about this book for me was the picture it presented of how incestuous the south was among the white population, partly because of a practice of casual sexual exploitation (rape) of black or mixed-race women by white men which often times produced offspring whose parentage was often publicly obscured for all kinds of reasons.
The more I think about this book, the more I realize that the real villains were often unscrupulous, ignorant, and violent white men; and that incivility often manifested itself among the white population in their relations with one another within the white community, albeit wrapped in the absurd veneer of a kind of imperious and irreproachable southern chivalry and gentility.
In short, there's a lot in this book for a current student of race relations to ponder and evaluate from a variety of angles. How did someone from the Jim Crow segregationist south view the late 19th Century social reality of race relations? What was considered a progressive view of race relations and civil rights in the 1930s? What constituted a novel that could be considered a radical critique of racism and oppression at the time? Etc., etc.
If you want to see what mainstream US literary culture embraced as an example of superior writing about the complex subject of racism in an era of Jim Crow segregationism in the US (and particularly in the US south), this book is a worthwhile read. It certainly makes a reader of today think about these topics in a way that I am sure readers in 1933 couldn't even fathom considering.
Another fascinating thing about this book for me was the picture it presented of how incestuous the south was among the white population, partly because of a practice of casual sexual exploitation (rape) of black or mixed-race women by white men which often times produced offspring whose parentage was often publicly obscured for all kinds of reasons.
The more I think about this book, the more I realize that the real villains were often unscrupulous, ignorant, and violent white men; and that incivility often manifested itself among the white population in their relations with one another within the white community, albeit wrapped in the absurd veneer of a kind of imperious and irreproachable southern chivalry and gentility.
In short, there's a lot in this book for a current student of race relations to ponder and evaluate from a variety of angles. How did someone from the Jim Crow segregationist south view the late 19th Century social reality of race relations? What was considered a progressive view of race relations and civil rights in the 1930s? What constituted a novel that could be considered a radical critique of racism and oppression at the time? Etc., etc.
If you want to see what mainstream US literary culture embraced as an example of superior writing about the complex subject of racism in an era of Jim Crow segregationism in the US (and particularly in the US south), this book is a worthwhile read. It certainly makes a reader of today think about these topics in a way that I am sure readers in 1933 couldn't even fathom considering.