One of the more steadily productive of recent Southern fiction writers, Jesse Hill Ford has acquired a reputation for accomplishment in the craft of short fiction and a mixture of regard and notoriety for his best-known novel, The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones (1965). The fine early work, Mountains of Gilead (1961), and the distinct achievement of his latest novel, The Raider (1975), ought to ensure Ford a clearer standing than he has been accorded on the basis of the inadequate testimony offered by The Liberation of Lord Byron Jones. The body of Ford's work to date witnesses its author's attempt to understand what the South now is, in the light of what it once was and by continual reference to what it ought to be. His portrayal of the Southern soul comprehends an examination of what constitutes human excellence at any place and at any time.

Born in Alabama, raised...