ABSTRACT
Now America, the great American culture, has been discovered and recognized, and it can before-seen that for several decades nothing more will come from that people comparable to the names and revelations that enthused our prewar youth. It is the story of a southern Negro, whose family lives in continuous straits and restlessly moves from hamlet to hamlet, from one relative to another, while the boy struggles amidst hunger, fears, school, and really useless jobs. For the Negro writer there is nothing exotic in his environment. We move among Negro villagers, among wretchedly poor small-town people. The writer always goes to the heart of the matter and if, at a certain point, one of his Negro adolescents says in irritation that after all "white folks smell", that is a consequence, almost a caricature, of the white legend that it is the Negroes who smell.
