In ["In My Father's House"] Ernest Gaines returns to the fictional terrain he carved for himself in "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" and "Of Love and Dust."… The characters too are familiar; they are the staunch rural types, like Catharine Carmier and Jane Pitman, who meet life's adversities with stoic heroism and whom Mr. Gaines has portrayed with such authenticity in his previous works. All are familiar—all, that is, except Robert X, who emerges in this tale as a Giacomettilike figure amid a landscape peopled by stalwart, Old South provincials.
In this sense, "In My Father's House" is a striking departure for Mr. Gaines, for during the first half of this novel the mysterious Robert X controls the tempo of the narrative. It is his presence, eerie and initially inexplicable, that dominates the story, and ultimately, precipitates the action. Mr. Gaines has unleashed an alien force in the insulated folk world that has heretofore delineated his fiction. And although Robert X never emerges from the shadowy torpor in which he has been cast, he is the catalyst that shakes the traditional assumptions and tentative equilibrium of the St. Adrienne blacks, the Rev. Phillip Martin, and even the white power structure with which they are in restrained conflict.
This is a free excerpt of 207 words. There are 588 words (approx.
2 pages at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our Gaines, Ernest J. 1933–: Critical Essay by Mel Watkins Access Pass.
