St. Barts 2019 #6 - An unexpectedly powerful book of 11 short stories by Pulitzer Prize-winning Rawlings. These were early stories and all set in mid-state Florida in Depression/Prohibition times, and all brilliantly captured the rural flavor of what was then, backwoods Florida. Dialect language that i could understand, and the most genuine of human beings, often in depressing situations, struggling with their humanity and the wild stage of natural backwoods Florida as an additional character in each story. These are stories that can only have been written by someone who lived it....and Rawlings did. Thus, there is a genuineness to these that is hard to come by....Dated dialogue, prejudices, and ways of life....but very real...I highly recommend! I thoroughly enjoyed 'A Crop of Beans,' 'Jacob's Ladder,' & 'The Enemy'....but my favorites were definitely 'The Pardon' & 'A Mother in Manville'.....both poignant and powerful......memorable....glad to have read this..... ( )

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