Southern Living

Southern Living


Set during the Depression in the depleted farmlands surrounding Augustus, Georgia, Tobacco Road was published in 1932 by Erskine Caldwell. Tobacco Road is a dark-humored novel on the account of desperate, dirt-poor Jeeter Lester and his family. It is the story of the Lesters, a family of white sharecroppers so destitute that most of their creditors have given up on them. Debased by poverty to an elemental state of ignorance and selfishness, the Lesters are preoccupied by their hunger, sexual longings, and fear that they will someday descend to a lower rung on the social ladder than the black families who live near them. The main focus of the story is on Jeeter Lester who is the father of the family living on an old piece of land that used to be part of his grandfather’s successful tobacco plantation, which was located on Tobacco Road. Tobacco Road, five nondescript lanes of pavement connecting Fort Gordon’s Gate Five with Bush Field Airport that once a str...