Summary

Dean Price:

From a young age, Dean Price tells himself he will work hard to escape his family’s pattern of self-defeat and poverty. Dean sees his father rise from his Tobacco Road environment to become a worker in North Carolina manufacturing plants. But his father also is caught in a pattern of losing or quitting jobs, and he is a violent alcoholic. Dean works himself through college then heads north for a sales position with Johnson & Johnson in Pennsylvania.

Disgusted with his job, Dean determines to become an entrepreneur. He marries and has two sons, but his marriage falls apart as he drinks more and more heavily. He quits his job just before getting fired and moves back to North Carolina in 1997 at the age of 34. As the tobacco and textile industries flourish, Dean builds a gas station, convenience store...