Condition:
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
by Ernest Gaines
read by Claudia McNeil
Caedmon, USA, 1975
Cat# TC 2058
Vinyl is in VG+ condition with a couple of visible marks that should not sound.
Gatefold cover is VG-VG+ with some ring wear visible from front and back. Opens up to reveal advertisements for other Caedmon LPs.
Tracks:
SIDE A:
1. Soldiers
2. Freedom
SIDE B:
3. Heading North
4. Massacre
5. Heading South
SIDE C:
6. Shelter for a Night
7. All Kinds of People
SIDE D:
8. The Hunter
9. An Old Man
**
African American actress Claudia McNeil came to the New York stage in the early 1950s after 25 solid years' experience as a singer. McNeil first worked in this capacity for the Katharine Dunham dance company, then toured as a single all over the world. She made her dramatic debut in the 1953 staging of The Crucible. Her first film--and one of her favorites--was 1959's The Last Angry Man. Though her biggest Broadway and London success was 1970's The Amen Corner, McNeil is most fondly remembered as Lena Younger in the Broadway and movie versions of Lorraine Hansbury's A Raisin in the Sun.
**
I'd thought that it wouldn't be possible for a man to write GOOD fiction from a woman's point of view. Ernest J. Gaines proved me wrong in "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman."
Jane, born Ticey, was "interviewed" by a man who was interested in the life of a woman who'd lived from Slavery to Civil Rights. Jane was given her name by a Yankee soldier whom she'd been told to give water by her Mistress, and it was Jane's name from then on.
When the slaves were freed, she set out with several going North. Secesh men who'd been soldiers during the Civil War (in other words, days before!) killed everyone they could find - everyone except Jane and the son of another former slave. Jane was either ten or eleven years old at the time. She traveled with the child, Ned, and raised him as her own.
This book goes through her life, through the triumphs and the disappointments, through the times she spent on different plantations and doing different jobs. Working my way through the vernacular was a challenge, but it added credibility to the story. Hatred based on skin color is rampant throughout the book; so is Miss Jane's knowing "her place." Nonetheless, she tells with touching sorrow of the love of a white man for a Creole teacher. Happiest in the fields, she was incredibly profound when she spoke of talking to the trees: "Anybody caught talking to a chinaball tree or a thorn tree got to be crazy. But when you talk to an oak tree that's been here all these years, and knows more than you'll ever know, it's not craziness; it's just the nobility you respect."
Her stories give new meaning to "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." There are those who will dissect the book for symbolism. It's not necessary to do so; "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" carries itself just fine.
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