SOURCE: Erskine Caldwell, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1969, pp. 10-12.

In the following excerpt, Korges discusses The Sacrilege of Alan Kent, considering it essential to understanding "Caldwell's full range and his place in contemporary literature. "

To understand Caldwell fully and thus to illuminate his best books as well as to prevent oversimplification, one needs to know the early The Sacrilege of Alan Kent. The book is made of three sections, each separately published: "Tracing life with a Finger" (1929), "Inspiration for Greatness" (1930), "Hours before Eternity" (1931)—titles significantly different from those of the other short novels published during the same years: The Bastard (1929) and Poor Fool (1930). Kenneth Burke in his remarkable chapter on Caldwell in The Philosophy of literary Form calls this early work a "sport," in that it is so different from other works by Caldwell. The book is closer to a series or a collection of Joycean "epiphanies...