Hold Autumn in Your Hand

Big thanks to Howard (again) for alerting me to this book. You should read his wonderful review before you read this.

Hold Autunm in Your Hand is a year in the life of Sam Tucker as he struggles to support his family (wife, two children and grandmother) during the Great Depression. Tired of being a share cropper he takes over a sixty- eight farm in the San Pedro bottomland and works for six bits a day. Despite multiple setbacks Sam is always wonderfully optimistic and stoic. It’s his perspicacity that get him through.
“You somehow had the feeling, when with simple, laborious magic you were making good things out of dirt and time and weather, that you were paying your dues in that big association know as the human race“

Even when his show more toddler son is gravely ill with malnutrition Sam cheerfully finds a way (he borrows a cow for milk and spends his final pennies on old, but green vegetables).
He understands both the price of everything and the value of everything. The chapter where he makes syrup (to earn a little extra income) for Tiff Mosley is just tremendous. The book is full of wonderful characters, none more so than his Granny, who is a comical termagant. She is memorable for all the wrong reasons and a fantastic character .

George Sessions Perry wasn’t from the country, but spent time living with farmers during the Great Depression to help him write this book. He clearly saw the best in people and admired their resilience and their ability to survive. It’s a sympathetic and honest account. Hold Autumn in Your Hand won the National Book Award.
The author’s life took a downturn shortly after the book was finished, and tragically he never fully recovered.
I was genuinely sad at the end of the book because I’d really enjoyed sharing a year in the life of Sam Tucker, who became one of my favourite literary characters.

On the first page of my copy was a handwritten message, in copperplate:
“Jackie from Anne
1943
Send from the USA to my dear cousin”.

I don’t know who Jackie was, but I really hope that she enjoyed Hold Autumn in Your Hand as much as I did, nearly 80 years later. show less

This was an unexpected treat! George Sessions Perry tells the story of a year in the life of poor texan farmhand, Sam Tucker who is uneducated, married with 2 children along with "granny", his grandmother he travels from farm to farm picking cotton, working the land many times along side the negroes. Although unschooled, he has an incredible ability to look at a situation and figure out a solution. Never giving up, knowing he's poor, but feeling blessed so easily by the smallest of things. Bartering his labor for goods, shelter, money, water,... whatever. He has a positive friendly attitude. Everyone likes him except his neighbor Henry Devers who is constantly trying to sabotage his efforts. The day finally comes when Sam can't hold his show more outrage at the newest act Devers pulls in destroying his garden and therefore affecting his family's health & life. His positve attitude with "when there's a will there's a way" mentality serves him well and is an inspiring story. "Hold Autumn in your hand" is the knowledge his whole family receives from sending young Daisey to school. Definitely a thumbs up recommendation!

(My cover differs from any listed here so I will have to upload my personal copy of the cover for my edition.) show less