The Surface Of Earth by Reynolds Price

 

This is the story of the Mayfield family in the states of Virginia and North Carolina during the early 1900's.  There is one constant in as the generations come and go.  The men of the family don't raise their sons.  The first Mayfield we hear about leaves his wife and children and ends up in Richmond where he lives the rest of his life with a housekeeper.  His son convinces one of his female students to elope with him.  They live together until their son, Beau, is born and his wife and son go back to visit her family.  The family has a crisis while she is there and then the baby gets gravely ill and she stays and stays, never returning to her husband but devoting her life to her father.  When Beau grows up, he marries a woman who dies giving birth to their son.  He attempts to raise the boy himself but soon takes him to the home where he was raised and leaves his son with his grandmother and great aunt to raise.

Another similarity between the generations is how love is perceived.  The men almost regard their love as poison, regretting and asking forgiveness from the women who love them.  Most of the men make their living as teachers.  Another commonality is the interplay between the Caucasian Mayfields and the African American women around them.  Most of the men have affairs with various women resulting in unacknowledged sons.  

Reynolds Price is an American author who wrote about the American experience, mainly the life in the South and its border states.  He also taught at Duke University for over fifty years.  This book is the beginning of a trilogy about the Mayfield family and its' lives over the decades.  There are no happy stories or marriages in these pages; every love relationship is tortured and troublesome.  But it is an interesting look at life during the early 1900's until after the World Wars and I'll pick up the other two books in the trilogy and see what happens with the Mayfield family.  This book is recommended for historical and literary fiction readers.