Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896–1953)

Cross Creek is one of the finest memoirs ever written, filled with grace and beauty from one of America's greatest writers, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Perhaps no other writer has so perfectly and honestly captured a place and time like Rawlings did in Cross Creek. It will transport you to that small acreage of backwoods Florida and cause you to wish for a life such as this.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings purchased a seventy-two acre orange grove in this remote area and fled her aristocratic life in show more the city to perfect her craft and get published. It is here that all her beloved books would be written, including this memoir covering the years of hardships and beauty at Cross Creek. Rawlings was in many ways reborn in Cross Creek, and she would leave behind literary achievements such as "South Moon Under," "Golden Apples," "When the Whippoorwill," "Cross Creek Cookery," and of course, her Pulitzer winning, "The Yearling."

Her close relationships with her neighbors at the creek, both black and white, are told with humor and humanity. Their lives were often filled with hardships but serenity as well, for all of them had chosen to live this kind of life rather than conform to society. Especially poignant are Rawlings's observations of a young destitute couple who would later be portrayed so movingly in Jacob's Ladder.

Rawlings's recollections of her friendships with Moe and his daughter Mary, who was Moe's reason for living, and the only one in his family who cared whether he came or went, are told with such beauty we feel pain ourselves when he takes his last breath at the creek. Rawlings's deep friendships over the years with Tom and Old Martha are told with humor, honesty and a gift for description few have ever captured on paper.

Tinged with sadness is Marjorie's relationship both as employer and friend to 'Geechee. Rawlings would attempt to help her, but to no avail, as this sweet personality slowly became an unemployable alcoholic. Her mistreatment at the hands of a womanizer unworthy of her love was at the heart of her problem. It is perhaps also at the bottom of some bitter comments from Rawlings.

But Cross Creek is about the earth and our relationship to it. Rawlings came to believe over time that when we lose our connection to the earth, we lose a part of ourselves. The great and wondrous beauty of nature, from magnolia blossoms and rare herbs to Hayden mangos and papaya, are as much a part of this memoir as the people. Particularly hilarious are this gifted writer's descriptions of a pet racoon of such mischievous nature and cantankerous disposition that it almost seems human.

Rawlings's world at the creek is perhaps her legacy, a gift given to the reader we can never forget. In order to enjoy this memoir, however, one must take into consideration a number of factors. Published in 1942 and covering many years prior in a backwoods area of Florida, this was a time when racial equality was a distant dream. Some may be offended by Rawlings's casual - though never mean spirited - observations.

Rawlings honestly relates actual conversations from this time and place between blacks and whites, and blacks to other blacks. While Rawlings herself treated everyone fairly, a long string of farmhands prone to drink and violence - including the man who would destroy her friend and employee 'Geechee - prompted Rawlings to lump an entire race into one group, her friends at the creek being rare exceptions. I do not feel this caveat should keep anyone from reading this most beautiful and heartwarming of memoirs, as this is an unflinchingly honest look at a time and a place, as well as attitudes - warts and all.

Rawlings's graceful prose, whether describing a chorus of frogs singing at night as a Brahms waltz, the scent of hibiscus drifting through the air at dusk or myriad of dishes meticulously prepared and labored over for hours, is delightful and unforgettable. Cross Creek will make you hungry for succulent fruits, cornbread and hot biscuits with wild plum jelly, and the living of life itself.

Reading this lovingly written memoir will leave you with a wistful desire to walk away from society as Rawlings did, and live the life we crave in our very being, even if that life can only be lived in our hearts.

"Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time."
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
(1896-1953) show less

''Dead limbs were falling in the swamp. It was a certain sign of rain. They fell from trees before and after, as though some dropped in terror of the moist burden, and others resisted a little longer. Limpkins were crying, and it would not be long before the grey curtain over the scrub and river dissolved into a sweep of rain’’

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1886-1953) was born in Washington and moved to Florida in 1928. Immediately she started work on her first novel. She drew material for show more her stories from the Alachua County region in community of Cross Creek. She lived with a moonshiner for several weeks whilst researching the novel. During this time she learned the local dialect and traditions that makes this book so unique.

South Moon Under is an absolutely fantastic book, focusing on three generations of a poor rural ‘Cracker’ family in Florida. The Lantry’s farm on remote land, which was mainly scrub forest, swamp and hammock.
The book focuses on Lant and his mother Piety (pronounced Py-tee). It’s title refers to one of the moon’s stages, what they believed to be a critical influence on hunting and crops. Lant learns to hunt deer using moonlight.

''On the way home he considered the deer and the moon. He considered the fish and the owls. The deer and the rabbits, the fish and the owls, stirred at moon-rise and at moon-down; at south-moon-over and at south-moon-under''

It’s a wonderful story about people who are totally at one with nature. The descriptions of all the plants and animals are just gorgeous. It’s deeply atmospheric and Rawlings captures the wilderness for all it’s danger, and beauty.

“The sun was high. The river red and gold and bronze, for the sweet gums and hickories and maples were in full autumn colour. The cypress needles had turned to the deep-red of Lant’s hair. The river water, stained by cypress and magnolia, dissolved in it’s clear brownness.”

There’s a host of colourful characters, all doing their bit to get by in an environment of extreme poverty. Prohibition plays a big part (and casts a long shadow) as Lant makes moonshine during the Depression. This only leads to a world of pain as his cousin becomes jealous of his success. It never ceases to amaze me what people will do for 25 pieces of silver.
South Moon Under was a finalist in the 1933 Pulitzer Prize. It was in good company. Faulkner’s magnificent Light in August was also a runner up. TB Stribling’s The Store was the winner in what was a wonderful year for southern literature.
The dialect makes it a little challenging, but don’t let that put you off. I started off slowly and ended up in awe of the writing. I really can’t do it justice. Without doubt a contender for my favourite book this year. show less

"You figgered I went back on you. Now there's a thing ever' man has got to know. Mebbe you now it a'ready. Twan't only me... Boy, life goes back on you."

I was mesmerized. I never wanted it to end.

You become immersed in the world of the Baxter family - Penny (Pa), Ory (Ma), and 12-year-old Jody. They live post-Civil War in the Jacksonville area of Florida on a small clearing where they subsist growing corn, sweet potatoes, cow-peas, and cane sugar; augmented by a dairy cow and plenty of show more hunting. Their nearest neighbors are their frenemies the Forresters, a rough crowd of four or five grown men with their Ma and Pa. Jody has a special relationship with his Pa; not so much with Ma, who is hardened by having buried too many of her babies. Half the book goes by until the main plot commences - Jody finds Flag, an orphaned fawn he adopts, after having longed for years for some little creature he could care for and call his own. You know how it ends.

These people know their land so intimately, they know their game, their predators, their weather, in a way like I imagine most people today have no idea.

It was absolutely beautiful. I love coming-of-age stories. I'm partial to those with girls, and this is a boy's book through and through, but it was still about that magical portal between child and grown-up.

"Ever' man wants life to be a fine thing, and a easy. 'Tis fine, boy, powerful fine, but 'tain't easy. Life knocks a man down and he gits up and it knocks him down again. I've been uneasy all my life." show less

Every night for three weeks, my nine-year-old and I would snuggle together under a blanket, tea cups balanced on our laps. I would read aloud in what my spouse says was a pretty good Southern accent and she would read along silently over my shoulder.

After we'd finished the book and blown our noses and she'd talked a bit, I realized that she and I got different messages from the story. She loved it for the outdoors and the animals---both the cute baby animals raised by Fodder-Wing and Jody show more and the animals who threatened to kill them, directly or indirectly. When she cried, she cried because there was no clear right path for Jody to have followed. Should he have taken the fawn in or should he have left it? Neither seemed like a good plan in the end.

When I cried, I cried because as a parent, there's no clear right path for raising my children. Penny, like many (most?) parents, tried to protect his son from the ills of his own childhood. He kept Jody from hard work and hunger, shielding him always from the ugly ways of people, a buffer between his son and reality. This spared Jody pain when he was young, but it left him unprepared for the life of an adult. The boy couldn't read or write well or light a fire on his own or carry home a carcass after a hunt. Adulthood comes, though, whether we're prepared for it or not. And so when I cried, it was in part for that remembered pain of crossing the threshold between childhood and adulthood and realizing there really was no magic to it after all, but it was even more for the constant and anticipated pain of knowing that no matter what I do for my children, they're going to have to suffer in order to grow. I can't get them out of that any more than I can get myself out of my own growing pains.

Even if I could keep them from feeling pain or sadness or fear as children, that would only leave them as adults with a sense of entitlement toward anything good in their lives and a sense of unfairness for any discomfort. They'd be as whiny as Jody was before his coming-of-age except they'd be trapped in it, perpetual children.

My take-home message from this book is that the way to help my children grow to be capable adults is to get them a wild animal to raise so it can betray them and so open their eyes to the betrayals they can expect from life every step of the way. Or since I live in the suburbs, maybe I can accomplish something similar by allowing them to make their own mistakes and feel their own embarrassment and fear and pain and just be there for them when it happens instead of trying to keep them from feeling it in the first place.

I think getting a fawn might be easier. show less