SOURCE: "Caldwell's Stories," in The New Republic, Vol. XCV, No. 1231, July 6, 1938, p. 258.

In the review of Southways below, Ferguson asserts that this collection of short stories is less imaginative but more mature than Caldwell's earlier efforts.

If you have any interest in the way the quick turn of a short story can give you glimpses of people living their lives, you couldn't do much better today than Erskine Caldwell's new collection [Southways].

Caldwell is getting closer than ever to bringing two ways of seeing and feeling into a single way of writing. In most of the early stuff you could (many did) trace a social meaning if it pleased you, but it hadn't been consciously put there: it was a mere necessary adjunct to a writer's delight in his material and his craft. But ideas were afoot and Caldwell knew a writer just couldn't sit around and be...