From the Bookshelf of On the Southern Literary Trail…

Lamb in His Bosom

Caroline Miller,

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese (Afterword)

Start date: June 1, 2025

Finish date: June 30, 2025

Discussion: Now Reading: Pre-1990

Why we're reading this: Chosen by poll as pre-1990 group read for June, 2025.
First read in September of 2017.
[close] Chosen by poll as pre-1990 group read for June, 2025.
First read in September of 2017.

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 1 of 1 topics — 144 comments total

Now Reading: Pre-1990

* Reader Impressions: Cane, by Jean Toomer – September 2025
By Tom , "Big Daddy" · 102 posts · 34 views

last updated Sep 09, 2025 11:12PM

showing 9 of 9 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Oct 03, 2017 Candi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, classics-shelf, historical-fiction, book-i-own, american-south

This book was akin to discovering a buried treasure! How this Pulitzer Prize winning novel (1934) never came to my attention until January of 2016 when I read a brilliant review by Goodread’s friend Sara, I cannot imagine. I thank her for first introducing me to this exceptional book and to GR group On the Southern Literary Trail for selecting this as the September read which prompted me to purchase a copy and begin reading. It’s not an easy book to locate for borrowing purposes, but it was well This book was akin to discovering a buried treasure! How this Pulitzer Prize winning novel (1934) never came to my attention until January of 2016 when I read a brilliant review by Goodread’s friend Sara, I cannot imagine. I thank her for first introducing me to this exceptional book and to GR group On the Southern Literary Trail for selecting this as the September read which prompted me to purchase a copy and begin reading. It’s not an easy book to locate for borrowing purposes, but it was well worth the investment!

Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind is one of my all-time favorite novels, and Lamb in His Bosom I believe should take a spot on the shelf right next to it. They complement each other beautifully. Lamb in His Bosom examines the American south from a different viewpoint – from that of the poor, non-slave-owning, hard-working farmers during pre-Civil War times. Slavery is an issue that is very distant to them; it is an institution of the “Coast”, the rich planters that live many miles away from them. We gain an understanding of their reflections on slavery, but this is not the main focus of the book, although certainly relevant to the times.

The narrative focuses on Cean Smith from the time of her early marriage to Lonzo throughout her multiple childbirths and ending with the close of the Civil War. This is not a Civil War novel, however. Rather, it is a story about Cean and her husband and children and her extended family - their toiling of the land, the joys and sorrows of raising multiple children, and the faith they must hold onto in order to live from day to day in a land that is as likely to take away as it is to provide. It is about the rhythms of the seasons, the slow grind of daily living, and the tension of survival. In one moment we observe Cean grieving over loss: "she kept thinking that breaths were like threads on a mighty loom, drawn tight, woven among one another, broken singly as each life reaches its frayed or short-cut ending." At other times she contemplates the wonder of the life around her: "All these things buried about her house added to it, somehow; the yard was lived in now, like the house, each bush had something added to it, other than enrichment of the soil, for, together with its history of planting and rain and sun and dark, each bush now had, close by its seeking root, flesh that had grunted or peeped or squeaked while it lived. It gave Cean satisfaction to know about it." Caroline Miller’s writing is sensitive and lovely.

Ultimately, it is the women of this novel that are the real heroes. Cean, her mother, Seen Carver, and her sister-in-law, Margot, support one another as well as their partners. Even in their suffering, they grow and reap more strength than ever before. They are life-sustaining, dependable and ever-giving. The author paints a vivid picture of the people and the landscape of the time. It is a genuine portrait of simpler times that were really anything but ‘simple’. Highly recommended for those that enjoy Southern literature and/or historical fiction. I should mention that the dialect of the region is used throughout the dialogue; it certainly made for an even more authentic voice and I quickly adapted to it and enjoyed it.

"For a heart may be lifted up and cast down in the same moment, as sometimes sunshine comes while rain is falling, and builds upward in the sky tall reaches of misty, unlikely beauty." ...more

121 likes · Like · see review

Nov 03, 2008 Book Concierge rated it it was amazing

Shelves: library, concierge, strong-women, women-writers, southern-lit, 19th-century, georgia, book-club, nature, family

Cean Carver weds Lonzo Smith on a fine Spring day in 1832, and they leave her parents’ home for the six-mile journey by ox cart to their new homestead. This 1934 Pulitzer winner deals with a backwoods country existence in rural Georgia, following the Carver / Smith families until shortly after the Civil War. Over the course of several decades, the book explores what life was like for these farmers of pre-Civil War America. They battle weather, wild animals, disease, and injuries. And, when calle ...more

22 likes · Like · see review

Sep 23, 2017 Lawyer rated it it was amazing

Shelves: on-the-southern-literary-trail, group-read, antebellum-south, 2017, historical-fiction, southern-literature, pulitzer-prize-winner, caroline-miller

A Lamb in His Bosom: Caroline Miller's Antebellum South

I was enthralled by Miller's portrayal of the strength of the yeoman farmer class in the wiregrass and piney woods of antebellum Georgia. The pace of life was dictated by the seasons. Whether crops would flourish or wither depended on the unpredictable vagaries of the weather. The harvest would yield a bumper crop or yield so little that starvation stared families in the faces. Death was a predictable misery. Disease, accident, all deadly. M ...more

21 likes · Like · see review