Deep South: Memory and Observation

Portraying a region steeped in religious piety and ritual, excess and prejudice, Deep South is a product both of Erskine Caldwell the storyteller and Erskine Caldwell the minister's son. Rev. Ira Sylvester Caldwell's missionary work took him and his family deep into the Bible Belt. By the time Erskine Caldwell left home at seventeen, he had witnessed such varieties of religious experience as all-night camp meetings, baptismal immersions in muddy creeks, snakehandlings, street-corner rallies, and midnight mass. Decades later, Caldwell drew on this fertile background when he toured the region in order to hear firsthand from ministers and churchgoers about how southern protestantism was faring amid the social upheaval of the mid-1960s. Deep South offers a rich mix of anecdotes, memories, interviews, and observations that points to what may he the true essence of southern spirituality.