Stars Fell on Alabama

Reading "Stars Fell on Alabama" brings to mind lines from the opening scenes of "Gone With The Wind," lines that said something like "look for them (these days)no more because they are gone with the wind..." The same could be said of the Alabama described in Carl Carmer's book. The days of Margaret Mitchell's classic "Gone With the Wind" never really existed, at least not in the romanticized way in which she wrote about them, but the days described in "Stars Fell on Alabama" did happen. They did, unfortunately, exist, but thankfully, for the most part, they, too, are noe "gone with the wind..." This book is about life, a cross section of real life in the terribly rural South from about 1921 through 1927. It was not a pretty time or an easy time, and these are not quaint, pretty sketches of life during that time. The innocent, naive and politically correct reader of today might find parts of this book, most of it actually, quite offensive. And rightly so. But these times, these days and these ways, did exist. And they put life in today's Alabama into perspective. It is clear to a reader living in Alabama that the state has progressed far more in the last 75 years (1930-2005) than it did in the 75 years immediately after the Civil War (1865-1940). That may be true for the country as a whole, but it is especially true for Alabama. Many intellectuals and scholars cite this book as one of the points at which this progress began. As Howell Raines writes in his introduction (added in 1990) this book was one of the first times Alabamians read about themselves as others saw them. It was not a pretty picture, not all bad not all ugly, but for the most part, it was not how Alabamians felt about themselves and not how they wanted their state--and themselves--to be perceived by those outside the state. To be sure, there was some beauty among the thorns, but it was a racist time and the thorns greatly outnumbered the rosebuds. There are no memories of the grand and glorious "Lost Cause" in these pages. Any and everything but. Speaking of Howell Raines' introduction, it would be far more useful and appropriate as an Afterword or Epilogue. In this book it would be better to put what you have read in perspective than to write about what you are going to read. That's not true for all books, but it is true for this book. In the hours after finishing "Stars Fell on Alabama," two thoughts come to mind again and again: --"We may not be where we ought to be, but, thank God and by the grace of God, we aren't where we used to be..." --And this book was obviously written before football took over the University of Alabama (where Carmer taught for six years) and the state as a whole. Football is never mentionied, either during his time in Tuscaloosa, or in his travels around the state. Not once. In that respect, life in Alabama has certainly changed. But even now, there are racial overtones in the rivalry between Alabama and Auburn. But that is another s

To properly understand history, you must be able to accept all aspects of your topic, good, bad, and all shadings in between, as sources of information and for enrichment of your knowledge. History rarely conforms to our personal view of the world, for there are so many factors which are beyond our control. So it is with Stars Fell on Alabama. The South was no friend to anyone but itself, and this book gives the reader, no matter what their background, an honest, sometimes raw, sometimes fantastic, sometimes poignant, picture of what a part of the South was like for everyone, black and white, and that is its value to anyone who read it and especially to anyone who uses it to teach about the South.

Before Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, Carl Carmer took a train from New York to Alabama to become a college professor, writing of a strange country he visited and returned from, as different as another planet for his known world. He roamed and wrote of the cornwhisky- swilling backwatersof Alabama and the rough-hewn urban centers like Birmingham during the 20s and early 30s -- the time of the Scottsboro boys, the Klux Klan in its first great revival, deep oral and cultural traditions among Alabama African Americans including the title, inspiration for the 30s pop song about a meteor shower more than a century before.. The Civil War veteran turned murderer of U.S. marshals and religious zealot -- lynched to avoid a trial and certain execution -- before Jim Jones and Waco.The great outlaws and train robbers, Rube Burrow and Railroad Bill, one white, the other black and so feared his body was displayed in several cities to prove he was dead. A period piece -- the N word is used-- it also paints a picture of a complex and diverse black community, its cultural and folk roots, its white relationships. Many Alabama natives, including this expatriate, would not know these tales but for Carmer who returned to New York to write about that state and area for decades more But his Alabama is Sleepy Hollow with a bite like "Two-toed Tom" the 15 foot gator trapped in a pond by stalkers only to find him surfacing in a nearby pond, devouring a 12 year old child, decades before scientists learned of the ancient underwater tunnels of the reptiles. Tom moved on to become a legend in Florida where he's still talked about just as Carmer's retelling of the great tales lives on in Alabama, too often without his name attached. Sometimes a bizarre mixture of charm and horror, and perhaps a bit of hyperbole, Stars Fell on Alabama is one of those Academic reprints that reminds us the past is never so simple as we might dream and that the man with manners is to be as feared as the trainrobber with a gun