When you reach September: An editor's West Florida essays and other episodic echoes

by Jesse Earle Bowden

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• Format: Perfect Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0962785601
• ISBN13: 9780962785603
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Half Moon Pub
• Length: 207 Pages
• Weight: 100.00 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Jesse Earle Bowden Master of the short story

Jesse Earle Bowden is a southern writer in the style of Mississippian, William Faulkner, but without the need of holding a dictionary in one hand as you read. His imaginary town of Ring Jaw is typical the towns of southern Alabama and northwest Florida before air conditioning brought the outsiders down, ruining the tempo and flavor of the area. His mastery of the language of the thirties is on target, bringing to mind an era lost forever. "When You Reach September" embodies the wonderful writings that Bowden has published over the past 60 years. He has mastered the short story and keeps the reader spellbound as he sketches the stories of the "real" south, using true-to-life happenings that he fictionalizes so perfectly. When you read "Ruby's Cafe," "The Worm Grunters," or "Six Bushels of Corn" you are reliving the period that Bowden remembers so brillently and so clearly. You are there. In "I MIss," the reader recalls the six ounce bottles of Coca Cola with slivers of ice and roasted peanuts (you can taste the beverage and smell the memories)you recall the movies of his era, the Big Little Books and "I love a Mystery," an old radio program that "Raiders of the Lost Ark" refers to in that great story. On and on - one story better than the preceeding one. I have read Jesse Earle Bowden since the 1950s when he began writing for the Pensacola News Journal, and I have seen his writings mature to the master craftsman he is today. I highly recommend "When You Reach September." Reading it is time well spent.