Strange trips down lonesome roads: John Faulkner and the development of the backwoods novel.

Skinner, Robert E.

THE AMERICAN CANON, WHICH MAY BE DEFINED as including a myriad of genres and formats, is a place of mythic landscapes, among them the rugged canyons and buttes of Monument Valley, Utah, the corrupt American city as embodied by Chicago and Los Angeles, and a more ambiguous region sometimes referred to as "the backwoods."

Our picture of the backwoods, depending on the artist employing it, ranges from the nihilistically violent to the frantically slapstick. It is an image that embraces at once the company coal-mining town of the film Matewan, John Fox, Jr.'s Trail of the Lonesome Pine and Al Capp's Dogpatch, USA. The varying pictures are united by forceful images of poverty, lawlessness, ignorance, indolence and drunkenness, sometimes leavened by dark or satirical humor.

Although its origins as a literary subgenre may be found in Old Southwest humor, it was the monumental success of Erskine Caldwell's Signet reprint of Tobacco Road in 1947 (61,000,000 copies sold) that set the stage for a publishing phenomenon that continued for more than a decade. (1) Paperback publishers were quick to capitalize on the success of Caldwell's book by commissioning dozens of earthy novelettes set within the boundaries of this mythic landscape. A survey finds that most titles include the words "road," "cabin," "shack," "mountain," "hill," "backwoods," and "swamp."

As Crider points out, authors and publishers drew on an image of the South in which the characters "live life at a very basic and elemental level, with few of the necessities of life" (Crider, p. 47). It is also a universe "in line with an apparent formula ... simplified to codes of lust, sex, and violence, mainly portrayed in scenes of ribaldry and melodrama." (2)

This Rabelaisian quality is perhaps the signal feature of this subgenre, and perhaps its greatest lure. The covers of these paperback novelettes routinely display voluptuous females posed in ragged, insubstantial clothing against the backdrop of a dilapidated shack. Many concern the desire of such a woman to escape from her environment, and her willingness to use sex as a means to that end.

As an early practitioner of the "backwoods novel," John Faulkner holds more than a passing interest because of the ways he adheres to Caldwell's original formula while setting literary precedents of his own. For example, the opening page of Cabin Road introduces Jones Peabody in the act of drenching a colicky mule. The action is described in droll language that recalls the shambling progress of Lov Bensey in the opening scene of Tobacco Road. There is a strong suggestion that each man is somewhat put upon, and that neither is particularly intelligent. Each has something weighing on him. As Peabody awaits the impending arrival of "the government man," he also dwells upon the fact that his wife, Clytie, is cuckolding him. Bensey lugs home a sack of turnips as he sulks about a child bride who refuses to sleep with him a year after their vows were taken.

A factor that sets the plot of Cabin Road apart from that of Tobacco Road is the impending arrival of a stranger from outside the backwoods universe who acts as a catalyst. The government man's arrival to pay Peabody for land to be included in a federal forest preserve quite literally sets everything in motion.

Faulkner sets a second precedent by emphasizing the centrality of the backwoods wanton to the action in the story. Later writers will echo this importance by using words such as "tramp," "hussy," or "wench" in their titles to indicate the female character's signal importance. Faulkner, however, is somewhat subtler than many of his literary disciples in his use of this character. Indeed, Clytie plays a rather small part in the action, but the importance Faulkner places on her as a symbol is indicated by the lushly detailed paragraph he uses to introduce her:

 Clytie was standing on the porch just outside the hallway leaning back
 against her hands ... Her dress stretched tight across her thrusting
 breasts. It was an old dress. Clytie was corn-fed and lusty, and all of her
 seemed to be straining at the seams of the dress. She was a ripe-corn color
 all over and fitted her faded gingham like a ripe peach does its skin. (3)

As other writers developed the formula of the backwoods novel, the rural hoyden achieved a bigger part in the story, either as a female destroyer in novels such as Gil Brewer's The Brat (4) or as a semi-feral beauty lustfully pursued and gradually won over by the protagonist's love, as in Harry Whittington's Backwoods Tramp. (5)

Clytie differs from other such characters in that she seems relatively content with her lot in life. Evis in the Brat seduces city man Lee Sullivan in order to escape the backwoods, then sets him up as fall-guy for the robbery-murder she commits in order to escape the constraints of a boring small-town marriage. Lily Sistrunk of Backwoods Tramp also desperately wants to leave her rural surroundings, but the unwanted attentions of men who treat her like a whore make her suspicious of all men's motives. Protagonist Jake Richards, also the victim of a frame-up, teaches Lily the meaning of real love before she dies as a result of villain Marve Pooser's treachery.

Clytie's unfaithfulness is introduced in the second chapter when Peabody explains to the government man about "the preacher." The preacher is never seen, but he looms large in the small neighborhood that Peabody shares with his two Negro neighbors, Ex-Senator and Equator. Having killed two wives and driven another away with his lust (p. 18), the preacher fornicates with abandon whenever husbands are not in sight, rewarding the adulterous women with tutti-frutti chewing gum. It is noteworthy that the preacher seems to be everywhere at once, capable of multiple acts of sexual intercourse in a remarkably brief space of time. Although Peabody's distress is made to seem comical, there is a sinister edge to the preacher. His invisible ubiquity gives him the quality of an evil incubus, or perhaps a Satan called up time and again by a covey of lustful witches.

The serial adultery also serves to indicate the disregard in which Clytie holds her husband. The disregard is made more pronounced by Peabody's unsuccessful attempts to discipline her. A head taller and some pounds heavier than her husband, Clytie is immune to the violent shakings that Peabody tries to administer. These ineffectual attempts to put Clytie in her place reinforce the image of an individual who is more child than adult, incapable of conducting himself like a man with a beautiful and sexually desirable wife. That Peabody is an archetypal loser is reinforced by his complaint that he fell short of the requirements of employment with both the WPA and the Army in his early life (p. 115).

In turn, Clytie shows her open contempt by first sneaking out the rear of the cabin to copulate quickly with the unseen preacher, then returning to send come-hither looks to the government man (pp. 20-21), who does his best to ignore her--for the time being. Like all succeeding backwoods seductresses, Clytie's allure is too imposing to be denied. By the time the government man has achieved a level of comfort with the residents of Beat Six, he willingly succumbs to Clytie, chewing gum in hand (p. 188).

Money is very much at the heart of many backwoods novels, perhaps because it is in short supply in this universe. It also has a power beyond its purely economic uses. The ownership of a government check temporarily gives Peabody the image of substance in Beat Six, providing him with the means to navigate the community economically.

The Negro characters, Ex-Senator and Equator, who live across the road from Peabody, are, as one may expect, excluded from access to this power. Their property is on the other side of the line where the government intends to establish the forest preserve. This denies them access to the blue government check and thus places them on the opposite side of yet another "color" line.

Faulkner makes clear that money holds no curative powers. Peabody expends his new-found wealth with reckless abandon, only to find himself worse off at the conclusion than he was at the beginning. Brewer and Whittington echo this sentiment. Evis's lust for money is a reflection of her lust to escape her rural origins in The Brat. She uses her body to bind men to her, but her combined lusts bring death to most of the men in her life and eventually lead to her own destruction. In Backwoods Tramp, the theft of money destroys Marve Pooser and the only thing he holds dear, Lily Sistrunk. On her deathbed, Lily convinces Jake Richards that the ill-gotten money can't repay him for his suffering. Softened by Lily's deathbed vow of love, Richards sends the whereabouts of the stolen loot to the insurance investigator who has been dogging him, and walks into the symbolic cleansing of a rain shower (p. 125).

Faulkner's government man has no demons to escape and no crimes to flee. The fact that Faulkner gives him no name makes him a symbolic everyman. He comes innocently into the backwoods and progresses through several stages of understanding. In the beginning, he's horrified by the squalor and the ignorance of the natives. As he follows Peabody through the Beat, his horror is gradually transmuted through rage and hysteria to understanding and acceptance.

One vehicle for gaining this understanding is a five-dollar bill that the government man tries to use on several occasions to pay for bootleg whiskey, food, the services of a whore, and finally gasoline. Each time he tries to pay for something, he discovers that no one can make change for the bill. The money is a pittance to the government man, so much so that he even invites various vendors of goods or services to keep the change, but even in that he is refused. He eventually understands, as McDonald notes, that "what the natives seem to value most are `rightness' and consistency in any action," and that just compensation for goods or services is no more than meeting a debt precisely (pp. 92-93).

The government man's experience is not shared by either Lee Sullivan or Jake Richards. Each of them enters the backwoods as an invader bent on revenge. They respond to the sullen hostility of the natives with mingled feelings of rage and fear, committing and experiencing violence as they navigate the unfamiliar landscape. Each gains knowledge and understanding of the backwoods during his stay, but he leaves with relief, never to return.

Faulkner introduces characters through the mechanism of a seemingly aimless journey that evokes Dude and Sister Bessie's trip to Augusta in Tobacco Road. The Negroes Ex-Senator and Equator are met as a result of the government man's need for a witness to the transfer of the check to Peabody, and Peabody's equally strong desire that the check be ceremoniously handed to him over a Bible, which he had earlier leant to the Negroes.

Drinking comes into play, partly to soothe the government man's frustration, and the need for liquor leads the quartet to Mac and George's Little Chicago. Ostensibly a general store, Little Chicago in reality is a bullet-pocked locus of illegal whiskey and gambling. It is an early revelation that criminal activity is an accepted characteristic of Beat Six life, something future backwoods novelists will echo. The lawless nature of the Beat is further emphasized by two episodes at Little Chicago. When Mac and George are introduced to the government man, they immediately infer that he is a prohibition agent and bolt from the store through specially constructed escape hatches in the walls. It takes some explanation by Equator to reassure the men so they'll return and furnish whiskey to everyone. Later in the story, another Negro named Booker turns up at Little Chicago. There is bad blood between him and Mac over Booker's gambling losses. When Booker tries to run off with some of Mac's money, Mac and a character named Frank chase after him with guns blazing. Only his fleetness of foot saves Booker from an early grave (pp. 146-147).

The drinking at Little Chicago leads to playing songs on the joint's juke box, and that leads to an impromptu and mystical harmonica solo by Equator. Equator's skill with the harmonica has a live-wire edge that works on the libidos of the inebriated men. Mac comments, "I don't know what the hell you Niggers do to one of them things, but it sure makes a man think about women" (p. 94).

Thinking about women in this environment can only lead to one thing, a visit to Old Man Good Darby, who operates a bordello up the hill from Little Chicago. Peabody goes along to revenge himself on the faithless Clytie, something he will come to regret.

Good Darby's house and its inhabitants are as grotesque as anything in Southern fiction. The two whores, Jewel Mae and Orta June, are his daughters, whom he sells for fifty cents per half-hour session. They are part of a long line of Darby daughters in this trade, the rest of whom have moved to the city to ply their trade in a more civilized environment. Darby is an oaf and a degenerate, but in the blurry logic of the Beat, even he affects a moral scruple. He will readily sell his daughters, but he takes umbrage at the idea he would "incest" one of them. Also part of the household is Jewel Mae's illegitimate three-year old son, Toodie. More malevolent dwarf than child, Toodie curses like a sailor, drinks white lightning, and wets himself with frightening regularity. He is combative and seemingly old beyond his years.

Like Clytie, Orta June and Jewel Mae are voluptuous beyond compare. Although one is blonde and the other dark, "both ran to shape, with good firm handholds here and there" (p. 119). Peabody settles on Jewel Mae, but he enters into a hapless pursuit that leaves him, in the end, the only man in the growing crowd who will not consummate his desire.

Equator's magical harmonica comes into lubricious play once again, this time to seduce Nathalie, Uncle Good's hired Negro girl. Uncle Good has expressly forbidden contact between the girl and the two black men, but as Equator plays, he sends a voodoo message to both Nathalie and Ex-Senator. Like the mysterious preacher, they elude the eyes of the white men to indulge in an off-camera orgy of their own. Equator's peculiar power is never explained, but it lends him a dark and surreal edge that belies his shuffling and kowtowing.

Drinking and sex lead to hunger, so the quartet of white men and the two whores trudge up the road to John Cobb's "fish camp" to buy catfish dinners. Along the way, Peabody continues his assault on Jewel Mae, causing her to lose a high-heeled shoe in the mud. She angrily pushes Peabody away, preventing him from playing the role of Prince Charming by retrieving and replacing the shoe on her foot. Following dinners of fried catfish, boiled coffee, and white whiskey (again paid with Peabody's credit) and continued romantic failure on Peabody's part, Orta June and Jewel Mae leave with a pair of passing johns, and the men return to Little Chicago to sleep.

The next day, after the disagreement and shooting with the Negro, Booker, an ex-convict and habitual cattle thief named Jesse Arnold arrives to buy whiskey. During their conversation, they discover that in spite of the time he has served in prison, he remains an unrepentant cattle thief. An argument ensues, and a snap decision is made to hang Jesse for his crimes. Old Man Darby's well rope is pressed into service, but the rope proves to be too rotten for a hanging, so that vigilante justice is frustrated.

The arrival of Jesse's partner in crime, Tennessee Doolin, coincides with a decision by Jesse that he should return the stolen cattle. Tennessee's father, Will Doolin, refuses to let them use his truck and the two Negroes drive away. The party of men decides to use a dilapidated school bus belonging to another recent arrival, Frank, to return the calves. Along the way, they are rejoined by Ex-Senator, Equator, Jewel Mae, and Orta June. With the full cast assembled once again, a comedy of errors ensues, during which Peabody makes a final stab at romantic fulfillment with Orta June as people and calves slide about the inside of the bus. The ridiculous enterprise is finally terminated when the bus runs out of gas, and all parties head their separate ways home, the government man accompanying Peabody.

Redding Sugg's assertion that Cabin Road is no more than "humorous fiction of a high order" (Faulkner, p. x) crumbles under a closer examination of the story. The sudden accrual of wealth to a man with no control over his destiny sets a precedent that will be echoed in later backwoods novels. Although the government check temporarily magnifies Peabody's importance in the Beat and momentarily distracts him from his wife's infidelity, in the end the money brings him no pleasure. That he cannot even buy the temporary solace of impersonal sex emphasizes his essential powerlessness. He is childlike, blind to the world's darker nature, but even his innocence brings him no protection. This is brought forcefully to the reader in the final paragraphs.

As the government man departs, Peabody turns to see his wife in her original pose of languid seductiveness, chewing gum. Thinking that she has once again betrayed him with the preacher, he moves angrily to administer another ineffectual shaking, but stops short as he smells, not tutti-frutti, but clove gum on her breath. Remembering the government man buying such gum at Little Chicago, he instantly recognizes that his benefactor has delivered the final blow, making love to Clytie while Peabody himself lay asleep beside them on the same bed. Stunned by the betrayal, "Jones went to the edge of the porch and sat down on the top step and looked out into the yard. He did not know of anything else to do" (p. 197). The transition from ribald high jinks to abject desolation is so sudden that it throws the entire meaning of the foregoing comedy into doubt. Like the violent deaths of Jeeter Lester and Ada at the end of Tobacco Road, this final victimization casts Peabody's life as a kind of cruel cosmic joke, which mere money cannot assuage.

Other backwoods novels would echo Faulkner's essential message that the backwoodsman or woman could not, or only rarely, escape the hell of a primitive environment. At the same time, the outsider from the city, even while temporarily suffering the ignorance and brutality of the backwoods, departs with his dignity restored and his spirit renewed. The government man leaves for town with all his appetites satisfied. Lee Sullivan departs the backwoods with Evis's younger sister at the conclusion of The Brat, while Evis faces imprisonment for her crimes. Marve Pooser and Lily Sistrunk kill each other at the conclusion of Backwoods Tramp, leaving Jake Richards to escape the backwoods with his good name restored.

In the hands of any author, the backwoods novel becomes a story of unleashed passions and base instincts, whether or not they are played for laughs. As a pioneer in this subgenre, John Faulkner reveals a pity for people trapped in a life of cruel poverty they lack the sophistication to understand or escape.

(1) Bill Crider. "Sons of Tobacco Road: `Backwoods' Novels." Journal of Popular Culture 16 No. 3 (Winter 1982), 47.

(2) Robert L. McDonald, "`On the Edge of the Porch': Entering the Hillfolk's Domain in John Faulkner's Cabin Road," Notes on Mississippi Writers, 24 (July 1992), 90.

(3) John Faulkner, Cabin Road. Introduction by Redding S. Sugg, Jr. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969). Photo reprint of Gold Medal Book 178, the 1954 reprint of the 1952 first printing), p. 4.

(4) Gil Brewer, The Brat (Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, 1957, Ghird Printing, 1962 [Gold Medal Book s1258]).

(5) Harry Whittington, Backwoods Tramp (Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, 1959 [Gold Medal Book 889]).

Robert E. Skinner
Xavier University of Louisiana