Sea Island Yankee / Edition 1

by Clyde Bresee

Overview

An adventurous boyhood, a remarkable Southern community, and one jewel of a memoir

Clyde Bresee was just five years old in 1921 when his family moved from a tiny Pennsylvania farm to the Lawton Plantation near Charleston, South Carolina. While his father labored for the next decade to revitalize the sprawling sea island plantation's dairy operation, Clyde reveled in a world utterly foreign to the community of his birth. On James Island he encountered a society of mannered gentility, a climate where winter passed in the twinkling of an eye, a place of wandering tidal streams and vast expanses of salt marshes, and a people—African-American people—whom he had never met. In Sea Island Yankee, Bresee revisits the time and place that endowed his childhood with great happiness and that have held a powerful grip on his musings throughout adulthood.

With the observant eyes of youth and the distanced perspective on an outsider, Bresee re-creates his boyhood world of water, live oaks, and Spanish moss. He vividly describes the Confederated memorial observances at which he heard white-haired veterans recount Civil War battles, and he recalls seemingly endless opportunities for swimming, crabbing, boating, and exploring. Bresee also pays tribute to the African-Americans who shaped his sea island experience, from Jamsie, his multi-talented playmate, to Ned, the indispensable plantation employee who once saved the life of Clyde's brother.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781570030956
Publisher:	University of South Carolina Press
Publication date:	12/01/1995
Series:	American Places of the Heart Series
Pages:	264
Sales rank:	741,751
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.75(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Born in Ulster, Pennsylvanis, Clyde Bresee is the author of How Grand a Flame: A Chronicle of a Plantation Family, 1813–1947. A former visiting lecturer at Cornell University, Bresee lives in Athens, Pennsylvania.

What People are Saying About This

Chicago Tribune

The memoir of a place and time, told with the innocence, excitement and bewilderment that come with the passing of childhood to adolescence.

New York Times Book Review

Mr. Bresee is a writer of distinction from whom we must hear more. His prose is transparent, supple and spare; he evokes unhurriedly the smells and textures of the Southern world of his boyhood.... Through the power of Mr. Bresee's writing we travel deep into the heart of a troubled culture and the 'unexpected' ambiguous beauty of a childhood lived in it.

Editorial Reviews

Launching the American Places of the Heart series, Bresee writes eloquently about his early years (19201929) on James Island off Charleston, S.C. The author's father managed a dairy farm on the island where he brought his family from rural Pennsylvania to experience a very different life. The memoir dwells on rich boyhood adventures: crabbing in the river, exploring the woods, learning in a two-room school. Bresee impresses the reader with descriptions of the gracious customs observed by Southern gentry and, without passing judgments, he records his feelings on the plight of the area's desperately poor blacks, some of them former slaves. Most of the story, however, evokes great times in a lovely locale the Bresees were sad to leave when they returned North. Williams's delicate drawings expertly depict this ``place of the heart.'' (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Bresee came to the Charleston, South Carolina sea islands in 1921 with his family at the age of six and returned to the Pennsylvania mountains to the family farm during the early years of the Depression. Sea Island Yankee is his recollection of his formative years on St. James Islandyears marked by personal growth and increasing awareness of his small world. Often humorous and even bittersweet, the book is a poignant reflection of Southern customs, family life, school, and race relations. Especially touching is Bresee's account of his return to St. James many years later and a meeting with a black friend of his youth. This is the first in a new series. Other planned titles will focus on Dallas; Dedham, Massachusetts; and Oxford, Georgia. A worthwhile addition for public and academic libraries. Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., Alabama

Library Journal

A selection of 18 essays by the distinguished poet and belletrist, from among her contributions to The New York Times as well as various national and regional periodicals. Particularly to be valued is her first-person account of "Theodore Roethke as Teacher." No index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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