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Stars Fell on Alabama is truly a classic. The book enjoyed enormous popularity and notoriety when it was first published (it was a selection of The Literary Guild and also sold widely in Europe). It can be described as a book of folkways--not journalism, or history, or a novel. At times it is impressionistic; at other times it conveys deep insights into the character of Alabama. Carmer visited every region of the state, always accompanied by someone intimately familiar with the locality. The mosaic that emerges from the pages of his book portrays Alabama's human landscape in all its variety, and it is a work essential to an understanding of Alabama and its culture.
About the author
Carl Carmer, a Harvard-educated New York state native, was one of America's most popular writers during the 1940s and 1950s with thirty seven books, documentary films, his own radio program, and four albums of regional songs to his credit. He taught at The University of Alabama for seven years during the 1920s.
Howell Raines, an Alabama native and former
New York Times editorial page editor and Pulitzer Prize winner, is the author of
My Soul Is Rested: Movement Days in the Deep South Remembered and
Fly Fishing through the Midlife Crisis.
Summary
This work recounts Carmer's arrival in Alabama in the late 1920s, his exploration of the state, its people, customs and racial violence. The scene described is one of Baptist foot-washings, lynchings and plantation mansions.
