Hold Autumn in Your Hand

by George Sessions Perry

Book Overview

The Texas January day was all blue and gold and barely crisp. Only the absence of leaves and sap, the presence of straggling bands of awkward crows, the gray-yellow flutter of field larks, and the broad, matter-of-fact hibernation of the earth said it was winter as Sam Tucker walked along the road, his long legs functioning automatically, farmerly. His body had about it the look of country dogs at the end of winter, when they are all ribs and leg...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826303773
• ISBN13: 9780826303776
• Release Date: April 1975
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

An underexplored classic

"Hold Autumn In Your Hand" by George Sessions Perry is a deeply felt and powerfully moving work that deserves to be better known within the canon of American literature. The slim and highly readable work powerfully evokes the feel of the American South in the 1930s. Perhaps because its author produced so little due to his mental illness, this book is still little known outside a small base of those who hold it within their affections. After reading this book, a reader will feel that he or she has truly gotten to know Sam Tucker and his family. The book can and should be better known, and deserves greater recognition for its eloquent portrayal of a man and his struggles.

funny, insightful, and an easy read...

George Sessions Perry's Hold Autumn in Your Hand is a classic piece of Texas literature. He writes in a style that allows the reader to whiz through the pages, and makes you fall in love with the characters and their problems. Sam Tucker is a hardworking and decent tenant farmer during the Depression. He is trying to get his family out of the duldrums they have found themselves in the last few years. He finally gets some luck when he is allowed to farm a piece of land that has enough acreage to make a profit. With one neighbor helping him every step of the way and another trying to thwart his attempts to prosper, Sam is able to use his optimism and will power to succeed as a tenant farmer during the Depression. I loved the story pertaining to his neighbors cow, along with his quest to catch the giant fish (one hilarious and the other filled with mixed emotions). There are some classic characters riddled throughout Hold Autumn in Your Hand (the grandma for example) and some funny scenarios, which make this a must read for anyone. Everyone enjoy!

A warm portrait a life in Depression-era East Texas.

Perry creates an easy and enjoyable read while at the same time providing deep insight into the lives of tenant farmers in the Depression-era deep South at the dawn of the welfare state. The author's resourceful and loyal creation is Sam Tucker and his family, whom Perry portrays as hardworking, neighborly, poverty stricken, and yet content. The story follows a myriad of concerns that faced many, if not most, poor and uneducated tenant farmers in East Texas during the 1930's. Whether White, Black, or Hispanic, they all faced the same obstacles of bad weather, ravenous insects, sick children, or belligerant neighbors. But Tucker, despite all of these unfortunate setbacks and tragedies, is able to maintain, sometimes through sheer will, an enviable optimism and determination to press on for the provision of his loved ones. Now Tucker is no "too good to be true" fellow, he indeed has faults, and it is these faults, as well as his responses to the tragic events that unfold in the story, that help to paint the lucid image of his glowing humanity and that of his family.Interestingly, the book has a number of not so subtle parallels to a certain Steinbeck novel of the same period.Highly recommended.

authentic and moving view of a tough time

I was introduced to this book in a Texas literature class in college and was completely charmed by it. Then I shared it with my grandfather, who spent his youth "workin' on the halves" in the very country inhabited by the characters in this book, the blackland prairie of Texas. My grandfather is not normally a voracious reader of anything besides the newspaper and the Bible, but he zipped through this book in a few days. As he returned it to me he said with a grin, "I didn't think he was gonna get it all in there, but he did!" A tribute to the authentic feel of the story. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in agrarian traditions, sharecropping, the 1930s, or the durability of the human spirit.

thank you mr.perry

This book uses extreme poverty as a backdrop to reveal the lyricism of the struggle to survive. In these days when materialism and cynicism are rampant, this book shows how "Just enough" is beautiful and satisfactory. I read this book as a young girl and its poetry is with me still