But it is not only at these outward forms that we must look to find the evidence of a nation’s hurt. We must look as well at the heart of guilt that beats in each of us, for there the cause lies. We must look, and with our own eyes see, the central core of defeat and shame and failure which we have wrought in the lives of even the least of these, our brothers. And why must we look? Because we must probe to the bottom of our collective wound. As men, as Americans, we can no longer cringe away and lie. Are we not all warmed by the same sun, frozen by the same cold, shone on by the same lights of time and terror here in America? Yes, and if we do not look and see it, we shall be all damned together.
So George Webber had written a book in which he had tried, with only partial success, to tell the truth about the little segment of life that he had seen and known. And now he was worried about what the people back in his home town would think of it. He thought a few of them would “read it”. He was afraid there would be “talk”. He supposed that there might even be a protest here and there, and he tried to prepare himself for it. But when it came, it went so far beyond anything he had feared might happen that it caught him wholly unawares and almost floored him. He had felt, but had not known before, how naked we are here in America.
It was a time when the better-known gentlemen and lady authors of the South were writing polished bits of whimsey about some dear Land of Far Cockaigne, or ironic little comedies about the gentle relics of the Old Tradition in the South, or fanciful bits about Negro mongrels along the Battery in Charleston, or, if passion was in the air, amusing and light-hearted tales about the romantic adulteries of dusky brethren and their “high-yaller gals” on a plantation somewhere. There wasn’t much honesty or essential reality in these books, and the people who wrote them had not made much effort to face the facts in the life round them. One wrote about Cockaigne because it was far enough away to be safe; and if one wanted to write about adultery, or about crime and punishment of any sort, it was a good deal safer to let it happen to a group of darkies than to the kind of people one had to live with every day.
Home to Our Mountains was a novel that did not fit into any of these standardised patterns. It didn’t seem to have much pattern at all. The people of Libya Hill hardly knew what to make of it at first. Then they recognised themselves in it. From that point on, they began to live it all over again. People who had never bought a book before bought this one. Libya Hill alone bought two thousand copies of it. It stunned them, it overwhelmed them, and in the end it made them fight.
For George Webber had used the scalpel in a way that that section of the country was not accustomed to. His book took the hide off of the whole community, and as a result of this it also took the hide off of George Webber.
In Libya Hill, a day or two before the publication of the book, Margaret Shepperton met Harley McNabb on the street. They exchanged greetings and stopped to talk.
“Have you seen the book?” he said.
“Yes, George sent me an advance copy,” she answered, beaming at him, “and he signed it for me, too. But I haven’t read it. It just came this morning. Have you seen it?”
“Yes,” he said. “We have a review copy in the office.”
“What do you think of it?” She looked at him with the expression of a large and earnest woman who lets herself be governed considerably by the opinion of those round her mean—“now you’ve been to college, Harley,” she began jestingly, but also rather eagerly. “It may be deep stuff to me—but you ought to know—you’re educated—you ought to be a judge about these things. What I mean is, do you think it’s good?”
He was silent for a moment, his lean hand fingering the bowl of his blackened briar, on which he puffed thoughtfully. Then:
“Margaret,” he said, “it’s pretty rough…Now don’t get excited,” he added quickly as he saw her large face contract with anxiety and concern. “No use getting excited about it—but”—he paused, puffing on his pipe, his eyes staring off into vacancy—“there—there are some pretty rough things in it. It’s—it’s pretty frank, Margaret.”
She felt the gathering in her of sharp tensions, a white terror, personal, immediate, as she said almost hoarsely:
“About me? About me, Harley? Is that what you mean? Are there things in it—about me?” Her face was tortured now, and she felt an indescribable sense of fear and guilt.
“Not only about you,” he said. “About—well, Margaret, about everybody—about a lot of people here in town…You’ve known him all your life, haven’t you? You see—well—he’s put in everybody he ever knew. Some of it is going to be pretty hard to take.”
For a moment, in a phrase she was fond of using, she “went all to pieces”. She began to talk wildly, incoherently, her large features contorted under the strain:
“Well, now, I’m sure I don’t know what he’s got to say about me!...Well, now, if anyone feels that way—” without knowing how anyone felt. “What I mean to say is, I certainly don’t feel that I’ve got anything to be ashamed of…You know me, Harley,” she went on eagerly, almost beseechingly, “I’m known in this town—I’ve got friends here—everybody knows me…Well, I certainly have nothing to conceal.”