Grass Widow: Making My Way in Depression Alabama (Alabama Fire Ant) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This book is worth the small price for Chapter 6 alone, "There is a Tide..." which contains exceptional descriptions and descriptors of a Southern spring.

Viola Goode Liddell is a gift. She describes the times in which she lived--the depression era South, Alabama in particuar--with rare talent. In addition to her descriptions and memories of small and seemingly insignificant details that mesh out her stories and give them breath, life and reality, she mixes the humor and pathos of life with a deft, but appropriate touch...

This book is true, an autobiographical look at the life and hard times of a grass widow teacher--grass widow being a woman who has voluntarily left her husband as compared to a sod widow, a woman who has buried her husband--in the hard depresssion times of rural Alabama.

Some may view her as an orginal women's libber, but she was just a good woman escaping a bad situation, doing the best she can do...it makes it nice and even more readable that this story has a good, though not perfect, ending.

Viola Goode Liddell deserves a place along side great Southern Ladies and great Southern Writers.This is not her best, that honor belongs to either "A Place of Springs," or "With a Southern Accent," but this book is well worth the price and short time it will take to read and enjoy it.

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Product Description:
Viola Goode Liddell's short memoir tells the story of her return to Alabama in search of a husband and a new life. Thirty years old and recently divorced, Liddell comes back to her home state - with her young son - determined to survive, during the depths of the Depression. Liddell narrates the obstacles she faces as a single mother in the 1930s Deep South with self-deprecating humor and a confessional tone that reveal both her intelligence and her unapologetic ambitions. Unable to earn, borrow, or beg enough money to support herself and her child, Liddell uses her family connections to secure a teaching position in Camden, Alabama. Even though an older sister's status within the community helps her land the job, Liddell is warned that she must be very careful as she navigates the tricky social terrain of small town life, particularly when it comes to men. A commentary on the plight of women of the time is woven into the narrative as Liddell recounts her experience of being refused a loan at the local bank by her own brother-in-law.Despite all the restrictions on her behavior and the crushing reality that she has become "the biggest nuisance in the family" because of her past, Liddell cheerfully and successfully builds a new life of respectability and hope.