Growing Up in Alabama
by Mary Elizabeth Sergent
Prior King Press, Middletown NY, 1988
Perhaps we never feel we can know enough about a historical figure's childhood. Unless the subject comes from a family which daily kept a record of events, frequently exchanged detailed letters, and somehow managed to preserve all these through time, the biographer usually finds the childhood and youth of his subject the most frustrating period to research and explain to the reader.
First, it should be emphasized that Miss Sergent's book is a novel based on fact. Therefore, we grant her the widest latitude in interpretation. However, to say that John Pelham was comfortable with Armninian theology (based on a letter John wrote from West Point, saying that he enjoyed the sermon) is somewhat extreme. Perhaps a little too much is rmde of Dr. Pelham's Masonic Lodge membership. The book is replete with appropriate symbolism: Jom reacts to the death of his youngest brother, Richard Henry, by hoping that he too will die in the Spring (which, of course, he does) . The author's religious sentiments come through, but if that makes you uncomfortable, that is your problem, not Miss Sergent's. On the whole, the book is an accurate portrayal of John Pelham's childhood. I myself would have liked to have learned a little bit more about their neighbors and some sense of Alabama, more than cotton fields, in the book. Miss Sergent writes well and her powers of description are good. You immerse yourself in the book from the beginning and it's hard to put down. It's an enjoyable, at times very moving, and well written book and I think it's essential reading for a Pelham buff.
This article first appeared in Volume 7, No. 3 of The Cannoneer.
