Down Town: The Journal of James Aloysius Holcombe, JR. for Ephraim Holcombe Mookinfoos

Typical Sams. I can't read Ferroll Sams and not smile the whole time. This one is no exception. His characters are so quirky that they ~have~ to live somewhere, probably around Fayetteville, where Sams lives. Like his Run with the Horsemen, while he may deny that it's autobiographical, I find that hard to believe. Granted he's not a lawyer--a good thing--as is the owner of the eyes through which the story is seen (he's a doctor in real life), that doesn't make a lot of difference in the narrative, when you come down to it. It's vintage Ferroll Sams. If you like his other work, you'll like this. If not, prolly won't, but then you wouldn't be reading this review if that were the case. Don't miss Beatrice's speech quirks. They're the best. It was occasionally like reading Molly Bloom's rambling thoughts.

My husband has read all of Ferrol's books and has laughed his way thru all of them. Growing up in the south in the country during the 40's and 50's gives you a total appreciation of these books. He convinced me to read Down Town and I laughed all the way thru. My husband is a rather somber person, but Mr. Sams has given him many laughs and hours of pleasure. This book lets you put names of characters in the book with real people in the small towns and country where we grew up. If you love reading about characters in the south when times were simple and neighbors still knew and helped one another, this book is for you. I will read all of his books after reading this one.

Another outstanding effort by the best Southern Writer of our time. He writes about the South as it is and its people as they are, with a loving, understanding, sometimes biting, touch. Ferrol Sams, a man of emphathy, is a gifted observer of humanity and our Southern idiosyncrasies Those of us who grew up in small Southern towns know the people he writes about. The are our friends, neighbors, relatives and sometimes "they" are us. Ferrol Sams writes about humanity in the South with an uncommon human touch. Like Viola Goode Liddell, he writes about a proud people in need of much but who deny the need of anything. And he makes them come alive, sitting in the room with you, on the porch with you or walking by outside on the street. This man is a gift to those of us who grew up in the South and to those who long to know what it was/is like to grow up here. This man is one of us and he "explains" us well, sometimes too well. This book lacks some of the "snap, crackle and pop" of the Sambo (Porter Osborne) stories, but it is still a great and essential read for Southerners and for those intrigued by them (us).

Sams' novel is reminiscent of T.R. Pearson's masterpiece "A Short History of a Small Place". Both novels feature narrators who describe events in their towns: Pearson's narrator is a young boy, Sams' is an elderly lawyer. Neely, North Carolina, Pearson's town in A Short History, remains a backwater, Sams' town (I cannot remember seeing the name mentioned) is not far from Atlanta, and grows into a commuter suburb. So part of the pleasure in Sams' novel is seeing the growing pains, the Wal-Marts, the influx of outsiders. For a long time the town's roads were dirt--and one of the reasons for this was to make it more inconvenient for any strangers who might come by. You need to be patient with this book (you need to be VERY patient with Pearson's novel). If you've ever lived in small towns you'll quickly see why. Both novels ramble--a subject gets mentioned, and this leads to another subject, and a third and fourth subject, eventually getting back to the first. Imagine sitting on a bench in a small-town general store and listening to the locals talk. It'll start with Bob's cousin Ella Mae, the one who married the UPS driver Joe Allen, from over on the Wartburg Road, one of the east side Allens. This will lead to discussion about the Allen clan and how Old Man Allen caught Billy Smith stealing eggs last week.After some opinions about the Smith family morals, especially the eldest girl Mary Jo, maybe we get back to the original Ella Mae story again, before diverting once more. As I said, you have to be patient. You do not interrupt the local who is describing Mary Jo's less wholesome habits and say "Enough. Please get back to the Ella Mae story!". So the book does a very nice job capturing small-town mannerisms. In both novels, much of the enjoyment centers of the eccentricities of the locals. You need a good writer (and an interesting narrator) to make this work successfully. For Sams, the writing style is something of a change from his great trilogy, but the change works well. A most enjoyable book, and if you are not familiar with T.R. Pearson's trilogy- especially Short History--you should read that also!

Ferrol Sams knows his readers. After a rather lengthly hiatus he returns with a novel about a "fictional" Georgia town. Anyone who lives in the South knows the characters in this book. If you are unfamiliar with Dr. Sams I would suggest reading Run With the Horseman as a primer. This novel is filled with a timeline of the populace of a hamlet filled with true Southern characters. I read several passages to my wife who comes from a small south Georgia community, and we agreed we knew the "real" names of these folks. My only two concern with this is that there are so many people that it sometimes gets a little confusing. Secondly, some people who are not from Georgia may not catch all the Georgia references (Cobb County, Stone Mountain, Woodward Academy, Piedmont Hospital, etc.) All in all a great book about small Georgia and the South. Congratulations Dr. Sams on your recent retirement. We have missed you, Sambo. Welcome back.