Jesse Stuart (1) (1906–1984)

I first read Jesse Stuart's “Taps for Private Tussie” (1943) when I was in high school. I just finished reading it for the third time, each reading from the original edition with those wonderful Thomas Hart Benton illustrations. The novel doesn't get old.

Narrated by a boy named Sid, whose parentage remains a mystery until the end, the story tells of what happens to a hill family after Kim Tussie's widow, Aunt Vittie, receives a check from the government along with Kim's remains following show more a World War II battle.

Members of the Tussie family, especially the men, are allergic to work. They prefer to drink, dance, sleep and subsist on relief checks. As the story opens they are living in a schoolhouse that bas been left vacant for the summer.

Vittie proves generous with her money, however, and soon the family is living in a 16-room mansion with more food than they can imagine. Tussies from miles around hear about their good fortune and move in with them. One of these is Uncle George, Grandpa's brother, whose slick words and lively fiddle music steal Vittie's heart, angering Uncle Mott, Kim's brother, who wants Vittie for himself.

Soon enough the money runs out and the bad feelings that had been kept below the surface boil to the top.

Meanwhile, Sid has belatedly started attending school and discovers that he is a good student with what is perhaps a different world view than others in his family, however much he love them all.

Stuart is all but ignored by readers today, but in his day he was an important American writer, and “Taps for Private Tussie” is his masterpiece. show less

Are you working hard or hardly working?

To most of us, that is just a lame joke, but to Jesse Stuart (1906-1984), once the poet laureate of Kentucky, it was a literary theme that ran through his novels, from his first, “Trees of Heaven” (1940), to his last, “The Land Beyond the River” (1973), including his classic “Taps for Private Tussie” (1943).

Some folks struggle every day to scrape a living in those Kentucky hills, while others do just enough to get by. We find both kinds in show more “Trees of Heaven.”

Anse Bushman, although 70 years old, still prides himself on working harder than any other man in Greenwood County (stand-in for Stuart's Greenup County, where I bought this book). He lives humbly, forcing his family to do the same, so he can save money to buy even more land. Trouble comes, however, when he buys land occupied by squatters, the Tussies, known for their laziness, beautiful women and love of moonshine.

The trees of heaven of the title are among the few trees left in this part of Kentucky, the rest having fallen either to loggers or farmers like Anse. Under these trees is where generations of Tussies are buried, and Boliver Tussie, head of the clan, isn't about to leave, never mind who owns the land and pays taxes on it.

Boliver is capable of hard work, and Anse even marvels that Boliver's tobacco crop looks better than his own, but he would much rather make moonshine and then enjoy the fruits of his labor. Anse knows that any moonshine still found on his property could lead to the loss of his land. So we have a conflict that could easily turn violent.

All of Anse's many children have fled the endless work required on the farm except for Tarvin, the youngest, who works hard while admiring the carefree lifestyle of the Tussies. He is also hopelessly in love with Subrinea, Boliver's daughter and the hardest working member of the clan. Theirs may be a match made in the trees of heaven and the hope for a new tomorrow.

Jesse Stuart already had a literary reputation before “Trees of Heaven,” thanks to his poetry and his memoir “Beyond Dark Hills.” But with his first novel, written in just 72 days, he expanded his audience and became a significant American writer in the middle of the 20th century. Like Tarvin, Stuart worked hard but seemed to prefer the Tussies. show less

This book is nuts. When it opens, Jesse Stuart has just finished his junior year of high school when he takes a year off to teach at a rural one-room school in Kentucky. He ends up in physical altercations with students nearly his age, is shot at by community members, and has to deal with students who have been in the first grade four or five times. Then, done with the education profession, he completes high school and goes to college. At that point he's hired to teach a small rural high show more school single-handedly. His school does so well his students beat the local city high school in a competition. So the next year he's hired to be the principal of that high school! Underpaid, he only does that for a year and goes off to graduate school. After not finishing because the building containing a draft of his master's thesis burns down, he returns home... where he's hired to be superintendent of the school district! Which of course turns out to be his craziest year yet. If this wasn't a memoir, I wouldn't believe. I kinda still don't. But it's endlessly fascinating. Stuart's passion for education oozes from every page, which makes the end of the book (where he gives it up) weird and underexplained. It's hard to be inspired by it, though, as it all seems so effortless for Stuart-- indeed, he often claims he was simply blessed with highly intelligent students. But if that's all, he seems to have ended up with a hugely disproportionate number. Thankfully, the book isn't aiming for feel-good, but (aside from the occasional preachy moment) entertainment, and it succeeds nicely at that. show less

As fine a coming-of-age story as I've ever read, set in the Kentucky mountains in the early 20th century. Young Sid, the narrator, spends much more time in sober reflection than his huge, comic clan of Tussies, short-sighted hedonists who live on the dole awaiting the next "big time" of dancing and drinking. The magician among the Tussie family is Uncle George, a virtuoso on the fiddle. The first two thirds of the book are fairly predictable, with the Tussies all chasing "easy livin" as hard show more as they can, but as Sid grows, he starts using his long-term perspective to make some real changes in the final third of the novel as he morphs from mere observer to mover and shaker. The ending was a complete--and delightful--surprise. show less