The Bitterweed Path: A Rediscovered Novel (Chapel Hill Books) - Softcover

Phillips, Thomas Hal

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807845957 ISBN 13: 9780807845950

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996

Synopsis

This long out-of-print and newly rediscovered novel tells the story of two boys growing up in the cotton country of Mississippi a generation after the Civil War. Originally published in 1950, the novel's unique contribution lies in its subtle engagement of homosexuality and cross-class love. In The Bitterweed Path, Thomas Hal Phillips vividly recreates rural Mississippi at the turn of the century. In elegant prose, he draws on the Old Testament story of David and Jonathan and writes of the friendship and love between two boys-one a sharecropper's son and the other the son of the landlord-and the complications that arise when the father of one of the boys falls in love with his son's friend. Part of a very small body of gay literature of the period, The Bitterweed Path does not sensationalize homosexual love but instead portrays sexuality as a continuum of human behavior. The result is a book that challenges many assumptions about gay representation in the first half of the twentieth century.

About this title

About the Author

Thomas Hal Phillips, a former Hollywood screenwriter and consultant whose film work includes Nashville, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Ode to Billy Joe, and Walking Tall II, now lives in his native Mississippi. He is author of the novels The Golden Lie, Search for a Hero, Kangaroo Hollow, and The Loved and the Unloved.

From the Back Cover

Originally published in 1950, The Bitterweed Path tells the story of friendship and love between two boys growing up in the cotton country of Mississippi a generation after the Civil War. A fine example of the southern literary tradition, the novel is also part of a very small body of gay literature of the period. As such, it challenges many assumptions about gay representation in the first half of the twentieth century.

Edition details

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807845957
• ISBN 13: 9780807845950
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336