A Short History of a Small Place

"Daddy Said"

2009-12-11T16:35:00.002-05:00

When Miss Myra Angelique Pettigrew commits suicide by falling off of the water tower, Daddy and Louis go to the scene of the crime to find out the whole story. Mr. Small who witnessed the entire thing tells Daddy, Louis, and Mr. Newberry what really happened. When other people start telling the story, Daddy sticks to Mr. Small’s version because he was actually an eye witness. Louis says, “However, no matter how lively and colorful the various accounts we sampled, Daddy and Mr. Newberry stuck by Mr. Small’s version. The others did not differ considerably from the original except in authority, but Daddy said that makes a world of a difference in this sort of thing.” (pg 57) What is odd to me is that Louis Benfield tells the story of his town and the people in it, mostly from what his dad tells him. Throughout the book, Louis says, “Daddy said” when he is telling a story. Most of the things that Louis tells in his stories are things and events that he wasn’t around for to witness first hand. Daddy says that it matters which story you stick to because the original story from the person who witnessed the event is the only person with authority over the story. Shouldn’t that mean that I should be skeptical of the book and all of the stories because they are not told by the actual witness of these events? It probably doesn’t differ much from the original story like it says in the quote but Daddy does say that the person you hear it from makes a big difference. I think T.R. Pearson makes Louis tell the stories that his dad told him to make us wonder if this is the real story and if we should trust it. It is frustrating now that I have thought about this matter and it really makes me wonder what Pearson was trying to convey about this book with this particular quote.

Themes From American Literature

2009-12-11T01:41:00.002-05:00

Isolation & Community

Isolating yourself in a community can cause insanity. When people nowadays think of people who are crazy, they probably think of a cat lady, an animal hoarder who lives by themselves, or old people who live with their siblings. Miss Pettigrew and the Epperson Sister are alike in that they live with their siblings at a rather odd age. Miss Pettigrew isolated herself in a community that loved her after her brother Amory Wallace Jr. tried to give Miss Pettigrew’s hand in marriage to Mr. Nance who was already married. Miss Pettigrew was adored by the people of Neely for throwing grand balls and parties. She was very sociable and loved attention. After her brother’s selfish mistake, Miss Pettigrew stopped talking to her brother, as well as every as everyone in the town of Neely. She shut herself in the house for up to ten years at a time, and would come out for a short period of time. She was stuck in the house with only her monkey and her negro help, Aunt Willa. She couldn’t socialize with anyone, and just lost her mind sitting in a huge house by herself. Miss Pettigrew comes out of the house after at least forty years and shows everyone that she has completely gone nuts and then she commits suicide. The Epperson Sisters were also isolated and turned out to be like Miss Pettigrew. Of course, the Epperson Sisters had each and were not technically isolated, but they were isolated from society and didn’t have any outside stimulants that kept them sane. When you are around two other people who are just like and you and don’t talk to anyone else in the town except for the occasional hellos you could lose your mind.

Innocence to Awareness

A major theme in American Literature is the journey from innocence to awareness. A person growing up and losing their innocence is a common aspect and is seen in A Short History of a Small Place. The young narrator, Louis Benfield is so innocent and naïve at first and doesn’t realize why the people in his town are the way that they are, and why they do the things that they do. Louis says, “And that’s why Momma stormed off to the kitchen and to her sink and her window. I didn’t really understand it then, but something had passed on that day and Momma was obliged to mourn for it.” (pg 29) He doesn’t understand things but as he starts to mature throughout the book, he starts to sense that there is a deeper reason for their actions. As he senses that there is something wrong, he starts to talk with his dad. Louis’s dad teaches him things about the town and its history which helps him to fully understand the actions of his town’s people. He grows up to find out that life as a child is blissful and easy, the world as an adult can be full of tough decisions and hardship.

Baby Monkey, Put On Your Hat

2009-12-10T18:19:00.004-05:00

Winter Clothes
============
by Richard Graham

Baby Monkey, put on your hat.
Baby Monkey, put on your scarf.
Baby Monkey, put on your coat.
Baby Monkey, put on your boots.
Put on, put on, put on, put on, put on your boots!
Baby Monkey, take off your hat.
Baby Monkey, take off your scarf.
Baby Monkey, take off your coat.
Baby Monkey, take off your boots.
Take off, take off, take off, take off, take off your boots!

I was going through the internet looking for funny kid songs, and when I came across this song, I thought of Mr. Britches (Junious). Mr. Britches is Miss Pettigrew’s pet monkey that she dresses in clothes. Miss Pettigrew dresses Junious in a sport coat, a porkpie hat, a shirt, and duck pants so that he could be sophisticated and presentable like the Pettigrews of the Pettigrew fortune. On the first day that he is clothed, Junious climbs the flag pole in the Pettigrew’s front lawn. When an audience gathers around him, he pees at the top of the flagpole which causes a huge commotion in their little own, Neely. Most people thought that Junious started peeing at the top of the flag pole to get rid of his horrible duck pants. After several accidents, Miss Pettigrew puts Junious in a diaper which makes him “an ammonia pocket with legs” (pg 104) She figures that there is no point in Junious wearing pants. “So he got shed of the underwear, got shed of trousers altogether, and anymore when Miss Pettigrew or the mayor turned him out the door and off the porch he arrived on the front lawn wearing a porkpie hat and a plaid sport coat and only nature’s gifts otherwise.”(pg 104) When Junious starts to go commando, Miss Pettigrew changes the monkey’s name to Mr. Britches. I thought that this song went along perfectly because in the beginning Miss Pettigrew puts Junious in clothes, and then she ends up taking some off of him.

The detailed telling of the monkey was my favorite part in this book. The chapter called “Junious” goes on from page 81 to 181. The whole chapter is not specifically about Junious but it mentions him quite often. Every single part that talked about Junious made me laugh because he did odd things and because the people would react to the monkey in the strangest manner. In the part where Junious pees on top of the flag pole, the town’s people form different philosophical groups. “Daddy said Junious Pettigrew’s accident atop the Pettigrew flagpole on the Pettigrew front lawn inspired considerable discussion and argument among the citizen’s of Neely. He said even folks who had not been there themselves and who had yet to get the story straight had a thing or two to say about the monkey and the monkey’s affliction, and according to Daddy it wasn’t until three or four days after the event that the general buzz and huzzah died down and the opinion began to solidify into several distinct philosophical camps, what Daddy called the various streams of thought on the urinary problem.” (pg 101)

Rhetoric Study

2009-12-10T13:27:00.001-05:00

“And Daddy said the next day when the Pettigrew door opened up around midmorning it was a new monkey that came out and went down the steps and along the sidewalk on his knuckles. He was back in blue pants, Daddy said, but did not at all appear to be the same creature who had relieved himself into them previously. He was a haunted chimpanzee, according to Daddy, and went everywhere looking backwards so as to keep out of the way of the Neely Chronicle if one happened to come at him. Daddy said he did not go up the flagpole right away but stood cowering at the base of it all drawn up on himself and skitterish until Miss Pettigrew showed up on the lip of the porch and said, ‘Go on,’ which was not quite enough to send him scooting up the pole like before but did start him to creeping towards the top, still looking behind himself and still seeming altogether half the size he’d been the day before. But Daddy said something magical happened to that chimpanzee when he finally made it to the knob and stood up on it; he said Junious sort of blossomed like a flower, gradually opened up and swelled to his full size. And Daddy said he looked back at Miss Pettigrew one last time before he turned his attention to the horizon which he considered with a very grave and sobering expression as he soaked himself again.” (pg 103)

This passage is towards the middle of the book where Junious begins to periodically pee atop the flagpole. This is the passage that is told right after Junious gets scolded by Miss Pettigrew for peeing in his pants and drawing in a crowd. Junious comes out properly in this passage but returns to his old self when he relieves himself at the top.

This quote perfectly shows T.R. Pearson’s style. Pearson lacks punctuations and his use of run on sentences that look like a paragraph, are at times very confusing and just sound like rambling. He also uses a lot of pronouns while there are multiple characters in the sentence which makes it hard to figure who “he” or “she” is. Although the rambling and extremely long paragraphs can be frustrating, it serves a purpose. This book is a series of stories told by Louis Benfield, a young boy who is getting his stories from his dad. Louis was not alive or too young to witness most of what he is telling; the stories he tells are things his dad tells him. Louis usually starts off his sentences using “Daddy said” and there is a “Daddy said” somewhere in the sentence at any given time. The rambling on works in this case, because it sounds like a little kid trying to give you a lot of detail and information in one breath. I found it very annoying at first because I had to reread sentences to understand everything. Then, I figured it makes perfect sense for Pearson to make Louis talk this way. When people tell stories, they don’t tell it sentence by sentence, but rather as one big sentence with a lot of conjunctions with a few pauses (or commas in this case).

Pearson also uses similes in a comical way. In the end of the above passage, Pearson says, “he said Junious sort of blossomed like a flower, gradually opened up and swelled to his full size. And Daddy said he looked back at Miss Pettigrew one last time before he turned his attention to the horizon which he considered with a very grave and sobering expression as he soaked himself again.” (pg 103) Pearson makes Junious grow back to his full self, metaphorically, when he pees. He says Junious was like a flower and what do flowers need to grow? Water, or in Junious’s case, pee.

Anecdotes also make up A Short History of a Small Place. Anecdote: a short account of a particular incident or event of an interesting or amusing nature, often biographical. (Dictionary.com) A Short History of a Small Place is a book purely based on anecdotes. The incidents that Louis tells of are always funny, even when it is about suicides. The entire book is like the above passage which is a great example of one of his anecdotes. Louis is recounting the peeing Junious story that his dad tells him, which is amusing. Pearson’s use of anecdotes keep the readers interested and laughing which helps to make the book move at an even pace.

Character Study

2009-12-07T23:45:00.006-05:00

Louis Benfield Jr.
"When Daddy leaned his face down towards mine there in the sitting room and looked directly at Momma and said, 'Madness,' I was somewhat confused since I didn't see any reason for people like Miss Pettigrew to go mad, but Momma was openy dismayed and deflated." (pg28)
“Daddy didn’t see it or anyway didn’t make it like he did and I don’t know as it would have meant much at all to him if he had, but I saw it, saw it as Momma switched it on, and it struck a note with me. And I said to myself without really saying it but just knowing it right off, this is the sort of thing that sets me apart from Daddy and him from me and both of us from everybody else, not simply that I saw the porch light come on and he didn’t and nobody else would care anyway, but more that Momma could switch on a single bulb and switch on something in me with it, something of sadness and grief and shot through me with the melancholy of twilight, something I could not be sure Daddy would know as I knew it, felt as I felt it. “ (pg 82)

Louis, the narrator of the story, is an innocent teenage boy who grows up hearing about the events of his small town from his dad. In the beginning of the story, Louis is innocent and a little bit naïve. When he narrates the death of Miss Pettigrew in the beginning of the story, he is so blunt about her falling off the water tower and killing herself. He doesn’t fully understand why Miss Pettigrew is even insane. His first realization that there might be something truly wrong with some of the people of this town is when he sees his mom turning on a light. It’s like a light bulb just lit up in Louis at that moment and he realized that people were depressed. Louis is able to feel the sadness that his mother feels, and Louis feels that his dad can’t feel that sadness for some particular reason. He starts to mature from that point and learns some of the history of his town that causes its inhabitants to do the odd things they do. Daddy and Louis start to talk and have important conversations about the Neelyites and specifically Miss Pettigrew. His understanding and being able to discuss the grave matters represents Louis’s step into the adult world.

Momma (Inez Benfield)
“And Momma and all the women of Neely suffered a kind of defeat that afternoon because they themselves were not elegant, did not lead elegant lives, and required for their own satisfaction that Miss Pettigrew do it for them. And that’s why Momma stormed off to the kitchen and to her sink and her window. I didn’t really understand it then, but something had passed on that day and Momma was obliged to mourn for it.” (pg 29)
“Momma is the one of us who tends to suffer most through the season. She hold up well enough until Christmas and on into the New Year, but by the first week in February Momma is a lost woman.”(pg 70)

Momma really liked Miss Pettigrew and thought very highly of her. When she finds out that Miss Pettigrew has gone crazy, she goes to her window and her sink to do the dishes and stare at her apricot tree. Washing the dishes seems like something Momma does every time something bad happens. It’s her way of coping with the tragedy. When Sheriff Browner dies, Momma does the dishes, and she does the same when Miss Pettigrew commits suicide. At first I thought Momma was just weird but by the time Louis starts to realize what is wrong with people, I figured out that Momma is a very weak and feeble person on the inside. She suffers from depression which causes her to cry and nap a lot. In the second quote Louis even says that his mom seems crazy. Even though Momma is depressed she is very social and loves to talk to her “negro grapevine,” Mrs. Phillip J. King about her favorite topic, Miss Pettigrew.

Miss Pettigrew (Myra Angelique Pettigrew)
"Daddy said it was a bedsheet, a fitted bedsheet, and he said she was wearing it up on her shoulders like a cape with two of the corners knotted around her neck. She was standing barefoot on an oak stump, he said, standing on the one nearest the front walk where there was ordinarily a clay pot of geraniums, and he said her hair was mostly braided and bunned up in the back but for some squirrel-colored strands of it that had worked their way loose and hung kind of wild and scraggly down across her forehead and almost to her nose.”(pg 9)

Miss Pettigrew is the wealthy spinster of the Pettigrew Fortune. She has a pet monkey named Junious (Mr. Britches). She is the most elegant and sophisticated woman in the town of Neely, North Carolina. She used to go out in public and was very sociable until her brother Wallace Amory Jr. agreed to give her hand in marriage to Mr. Nance. Since that day, Miss Myra Angelique stayed in her house for years at a time with her negro help, Aunt Willa. One day, Miss Pettigrew came out of her house with a bedsheet tied around her neck and ran around her house like a superhero. People start to realize at that moment that Miss Pettigrew is insane. After the bedsheet incident, Miss Pettigrew comes out of the house looking elegant along with her pet monkey Mr. Britches. Miss Pettigrew walks to the water tower, climbs it, and lets go of the handles to kill herself. The death of her doesn’t stop Louis from talking about her, and his story revolves around the life and death of Miss Myra Angelique Pettigrew, the town aristocrat.

Daddy (Louis Benfield Sr.)
“Daddy was afflicted by what Momma called an involvement with tobacco, which seemed to mean that he was always either smoking, had just smoked, or was preparing to smoke a Tareyton."(pg10)

Louis Benfield Sr., Louis’s dad, is the man that provides little Louis with all of his amusing stories. Daddy happens to know about everything that went and goes on in Neely. His only vices are smoking and cussing, and those privileges are limited by his wife, Inez Benfield. She doesn’t let Daddy carry around a lighter because it is a fire hazard, so he puts matches all over town to make sure that he will have a light to light his cigarette where ever he is. He is a heavy smoker, and when Momma gets Daddy a Zippo for Christmas, he quits smoking. Daddy tells great stories about the people of Neely and Neely itself, and it is only because of him that Louis fully understands what is wrong with some people in Neely along with it’s history.

2009-11-24T19:00:00.000-05:00

The Crazy Epperson Sisters

2009-11-24T16:44:00.001-05:00

The Epperson sisters, Eustace, Cora, and Annie were "genuinely not right."(pg 16) One day in spring the Epperson sisters decide that they are triplets and go to the county clerck to declare themselves as triplets. When they get to the county clerck, Mr. Woodley, he notices that one is considerably older than the other two, and that they do not look alike. Eustace the oldest looking one, asks the clerck to check to check the records and find a document that certifies their triplethood. After Mr. Woodley researches the Eppersons, he discovers that the three are not triplets and one, Cora, is not even an Epperson sister, but a cousin of the Eppersons. All of the Eppersons start to cry out that the statement is a lie. Because Mr. Woodley wants some peace, he offers to declare Cora and Annie as twins. They do not seem happy about that so the sheriff, Sheriff Browner, decides to let the three women legitimize their triplethood if they can get fifty adults to sign a petition that verifies their triplethood. They claim "that they have been victimized by somesort of terrible prenatal injustice."(pg 21) Everyone that is asked signs because they see no harm in making them triplets. After getting fifty people to sign the petition, The Epperson sisters take the petition to Sheriff Browner. Three days after the legalized triplethood, two men who work for the state, come and take the three Epperson sisters away. They take them to Dix Hill mental facility where they are declared to be "disoriented as to reality."(pg 23)

Something must have happened to contribute to their insanity. The death of their parents at a very early age could have been a factor to their insanity. It is also very weird that Cora does not remember being a cousin since she was brought to the Epperson's when she was five years old. These three women are not the only insane people in this book, but they appealed to me for strange many reasons and now we will have to see what crazy people do next int the town of Neely.

Works Cited for image study

2009-11-24T16:03:00.001-05:00

Works Cited

"1920s fashion on Flickr - Photo Sharing!" Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing. Web. 23 Nov. 2009. http://www.flickr.com/photos/34476659@N02/3550956558/.

"Apparently Useless Software: Fancy Chimpanzee Friday." PerversionTracker. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. http://www.perversiontracker.com/oldarchives/000298.html.

"Google Image Result for http://graphic-design.tjs-labs.com/pictures/tareyton-post-06-04-1960-005.jpg." Google Images. Web. 23 Nov. 2009. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://graphic-design.tjs-labs.com/pictures/tareyton-post-06-04-1960-005.jpg&imgrefurl=http://graphic-design.tjs-labs.com/gallery-view%3Fyear%3D1960&usg=__-sp-dQZgRlQlGduCJp22AvCf16s=&h=1250&w=975&sz=205&hl=en&start=15&sig2=tAR-YRHQbCSVoyS48Sbpkw&tbnid=a7ro9a8LlgO7RM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=117&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtareyton%2Bcigarettes%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX&ei=IY4dS7ruAdPR8AbAoqXqAw.

Welcome to the Village of Arroww. Web. 23 Nov. 2009. http://www.villageofarrowwood.ca/.

Personal Response 1

2009-11-24T13:08:00.000-05:00

I have read less than half of A Short History of a Small Place, and have found it to be very interesting so far. Things are starting to develop throughout the novel and I decided that this would be a good time to give my personal response on what I have read so far.

Louis Benfield is a young boy in the town of Neely in North Carolina. In his little town, there are a lot of weird things happening. There does not seem to be a plot in the story so far, but there seems to be a reoccuring theme of people commiting suicide, deaths, and insanity, which is srtange since the book is meant to be funny. So far three sisters who were totally insane get shipped off to a mental asylum, the mayor chokes on a turnip and dies, the elegant Miss Pettigrew commits suicide by falling off a water tower, and an old lady is slaughtered. Even with all the deaths and crazy people the book is enjoyable and easy to read. The deaths and insanity contribute to the books enjoyablity because of the way that it happens.

T.R. Pearsons way of writing is still confusing at this point. He writes extremely long sentences that are very hard to understand because he does not clearly state who "she" or "he" is. One example of his long confusing sentence is, "He said Everet Little, the jailer's boy, was riding the iron gate in and out of the yard and half the town was standing up snug against the fence watching her jig on the lawn and cut capers on the oak stump where the geraniums should have been. Aunt Willa Bristow was up on the porch, he said, but she never came down to retrieve her, never even came out from the shadows hard up against the house, and he said she danced as tireless and light as a child all across the yard and up onto the stump and off again, and she brought the hem of the bedsheet up under her nose and played out what Daddy called the siege of Thebes, taking all of the voices herself and making the likes of a swordfight by beating together a hickory branch and a piece of a staub." (Pg 10 - 11) Those two sentences are basically what the whole books reads like. It is very hard to distinguish which character Pearson is talking about, and it makes the things more confusing. These sentences are run ons and it makes it drag on. Other than the extremely long confusing sentences, the book is entertaining and never boring.

As I continue to read the story, weirder things happen, which I happen enjoy. I hope that things will continue to go into weird matters because those events encourage me to keep reading. As I continue to see Pearson's way of writing, I hope that I will get used to it and be less confused on matters. I am very excited to keep reading so that I can figure out the plot of the story. I look foward to finding out the short history of a small place.

Quotes

2009-11-24T02:30:00.001-05:00

Throughout the book, I picked out a few quotes that I found interesting. Now, I will explain to you why they caught my attention and what they mean.

"Then Mr. Small told how he bolted across the street and discovered that Miss Pettigrew, although noticeably dead, did not appear disfigured or brutalized at all except for the scratches from the rose thorns, and he said it was next to miraculous to him how Miss Pettigrew’s hat had managed to remain in its proper place atop her head." Pg. 57

Right after Miss Pettigrew falls off the water tower, Mr. Small discovers that she is dead. Mr. Small tells of Miss Pettigrew’s condition to Louis Benfield and his father when they come to check out the scene. It is weird that Miss Pettigrew is found in this condition after such a hard and brutal fall from the tower. I believe that her condition after the fall shows how elegant and glorious she actually is. Throughout the beginning of the book, Pearson describes the Pettigrew family as fancy, rich, and elegant. By making Miss Pettigrew “presentable,” when she should be mangled and disfigured, he is showing that even after inflicting such a horrible death upon herself, she is and always will be the elegant Miss Pettigrew of the Pettigrew fortune because it is what is was born into.

"Most people suppose you have to be weak and cowardly to take your own life; Daddy said that you had to be brave. He didn’t see any other way for a man to bugger fate except by his own hand, and I always got the feeling Daddy would have tried it himself if he didn’t have to die from it. The idea was really all he was warm to." Pg. 54

This is being thought by Louis Benfield after a lot of the people of Neely commit suicide. He remembers of how Daddy “had a soft spot for suicide” and how daddy would tell him stories of Romans and Greeks killing themselves. With all the people dying in the town of Neely, Daddy thinks about how brave all these people are. Others in town think it is a weakness and a breaking point after losing sanity. I think that this quote shows that Daddy is different from others in the way that he thinks and that he understands things about people that others do not.

“I didn’t think the old girl had it in her.” Pg. 55

Daddy says this to Momma and Louis right after Miss Pettigrew commits suicide. Daddy always thought someone had to be brave to kill themselves. It seems to me that Daddy is actually very proud of Miss Pettigrew, who was sort of insane yet very elegant. He probably never expected someone of that much class and grace to do something of that matter. He actually seems very happy for Miss Pettigrew, not because he wanted her dead but because he now knows that Miss Pettigrew was a strong and brave person, willing to do something about her life by taking it herself.

"Miss Pettigrew had been beautiful until she got old and wasn’t beautiful anymore and then she had become merely elegant. That’s where she was when she took the pot of geraniums off the stump and climbed up onto it herself, and Momma and all the women of Neely suffered a kind of defeat that afternoon because they themselves were not elegant, did not lead elegant lives, and required for their own satisfaction that miss Pettigrew do it for them." Pg. 29

This is the quote that starts to tell of Miss Pettigrew's insane behavior. Miss Pettigrew was the most elegant person in the town and other women envied her elegance. Then one day when Miss Pettigrew ties a bed sheet around her neck and stands on a stump, people start to realize that she has become insane and is no longer the elegant aristocrat that people once knew her to be. All the women relied on Miss Pettigrew to be elegant for the whole town and an insane lady can not be someone who is looked up to for elegance. Therefore all the women's hopes in having someone elegant enough for the whole town dwindle.

Image Study

2009-11-23T17:26:00.000-05:00

This picture reminds me of the Epperson sisters. The book says that they dress similarly so that pretending to be triplets comes more easily. When I imagine the Eppersons, I think of three women who dress funny and act strangely. These women in the picture are not particularly being weird, but when I look at this picture, I imagine that they are weird and insane just because of the connection of three women being together like the Eppersons.

The first description of Daddy by Louis in A Short History of a Small Place is "Daddy was afflicted by what Momma called an involvement with tobacco, which seemed to mean that he was always either smoking, had just smoked, or was preparing to smoke a Tareyton."(Pg. 10) Daddy is said to be a heavy smoker who smokes Tareytons one after another. This image reminds me of Daddy because these cigarettes are something that I associate him with. The book says that he pops cigarettes into his mouth and most likely has one in his mouth at any given moment. I felt that smoking is such a big part of his life that when I imagine Daddy, I imagine a man whose face is unclear with smoke around it. Even though the face is unclear, I always imagine him with a cigarette in between his fingers.

In A Short History of a Small Place, Miss Pettigrew owns a chimpanzee who wears clothes named Mr. Britches. He is named Mr.Britches because he wears everything but pants. Although this chimpanzee is wearing pants, it reminded me of Mr. Britches because he is wearing a hat and a shirt like in the book, and because he is a chimpanzee that I imagine all look the same. Mr.Britches also likes to sit atop of things and this image, I thought, was almost perfect in representing what Mr. Britches would be like.

This is what I pictured in my head when I read about the water tower that Miss Pettigrew fell off of. The author describes the water tower to be huge, silver, and able to be seen by motorists traveling through Neely. Pearson describes it as a gem. This picture does not represent it as a gem but this is what I imagined it to look like since I have never seen a beautiful water tower before. This image makes me cringe because with this image comes the image of an old lady falling off of a water tower.

Introduction of author/ book

2009-11-23T00:51:00.000-05:00

I have just started reading A Short History of a Small Place by T.R. Pearson. I started to read it because the description of the book was funny, all the reviews for the book were great, and because the back of the book said that it is "marvelously funny, bittersweet, and beautifully evocative." I am less than half way done with the book, so at this time I decided that I should look into the author to understand why he chose to write a book about the south, death, and insanity.

It turns out that T.R. Pearson was born and raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina which is located near the imaginary town of Neely, North Carolina in his book A Short History of a Small Place. Pearson also mentions Winston-Salem a couple of times in the novel. His writing captures the unique social order, outlook, and voice of the South.

Pearson now lives in Virginia, so he likes to write about the Appalachain areas in Virginia. Some books that he has written recently are Blue Ridge and Polar which were New York Times notable books.

Pearson is a great writer that is enjoyable to read because of all the new, crazy, unexpected events that occur. Although some sentences are confusing because he does not distinguish who "he" or "she" is, the book is still easy to read. I look foward to learning more about Pearson's style and how the book will turn out.