A review by miocyon
Night Rider by Robert Penn Warren

3.0

A peculiar book, and I’m not really sure I ‘get’ it. Set during the Tobacco Wars of the early 1900’s, when tobacco farmers in Kentucky fought to get better terms, and the violence escalated to the point where troops were brought in to keep the peace. It’s the story of a man who becomes part of the movement, seemingly without really knowing why. The book is told from his point of view, and there are long passages of his thought processes and observations. There are interesting characters, including one who goes on a chapter long digression about traveling west to hunt buffalo during the Indian Wars after the Civil War, although the main character himself isn’t particularly so. It’s supposedly a “classic of southern literature”, and for lack of a better term it feels ‘languid’ in that southern way at times. What caught me the most was the writing of the dialogue in various southern dialects, which take a bit to get used to, but paint a picture of the time. I’m not really sure I enjoyed the book, but I’ll be thinking about it for a while.