Books for ‘North Carolina Bookwatch’

Although “North Carolina Bookwatch” no longer airs on PBS-NC, people still ask which books are being featured.

When I explain, they ask, “Well, what books would you be discussing?” Here are three of my answers.

1. “Charlotte, the Slugger, and Me: Coming-of-Age Story of a Southern City and Two Tenacious Brothers,” by Jack Claiborne

Jack Claiborne and his brother Slug were important characters in post-World War II Charlotte. They grew up poor. Both gained fame. Jack, for his provocative columns and news stories for The Charlotte Observer. Slug, for his popular and profitable restaurants.

Until their father died, the boys grew up on a struggling family farm in southeastern Mecklenburg County. Then in 1936, the family moved into the Elizabeth section of Charlotte, within walking distance of Elizabeth School, Piedmont Junior High School and Central High School.

Both thrived, Jack as a student and Slug as a popular student leader and athlete.

In 1941, as World War II approached, masses of soldiers gathered in Charlotte for training. As Jack and Slug were watching them pass, one of them called out “Hey, boy. Where is a good place to eat around here?”

Slug shot back, “Here.”

“Within minutes,” Jack writes, “the Slugger had our living room lined two deep and soldiers waiting to get to our mother’s table.”

Their mother had a new way to make money.

It was the beginning of Slug’s food service empire.

Jack’s and Slug’s story is also a biography of Charlotte as it grew from a very small city in World War II to an important metropolitan center.

2. “Boardinghouse Women: How Southern Keepers, Cooks, Nurses, Widows, and Runaways Shaped Modern America,” by UNC-Chapel Hill professor Elizabeth Engelhardt

Elizabeth Engelhardt has collected hundreds of stories about boardinghouses similar to the one run by the mother of Jack and Slug Claiborne.

Engelhardt cites examples of how women escaped irrelevance and became accomplished and independent businesspeople as the owners and operators of boardinghouses in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

One example, Julia Wolfe, ran the Old Kentucky Home boardinghouse in Asheville at the turn of the last century. The experiences in her boardinghouse helped inspire her son Thomas Wolfe’s novel, “Look Homeward Angel.”

Engelhardt has assembled scores of other examples where ambitious or desperate women struggled to make their businesses successful. She also shows how their boardinghouse experiences had an impact on the foods that we today call Southern.

3. “The Caretaker,” by Ron Rash

“The Caretaker” takes place in and around the mountain town of Blowing Rock in 1950 where Jacob Hamilton, an American soldier wounded in the Korean War, has returned to recover.

Before he was drafted and sent to fight in Korea, Jacob had built a friendship with Blackburn Gant, the caretaker of a church graveyard.

Because of a severe bout with polio, Gant’s face became disfigured to the extent that people found it impossible to look at him. Jacob, however, had befriended Blackburn, and they established a firm friendship.

Jacob had also fallen in love with Naomi and married her.

Jacob’s parents never accepted Naomi and, in fact, had essentially disowned both Jacob and Naomi. Before he left for Korea, he begged his parents to help take care of Naomi while he was away. But they refused.

With Jacob in Korea, Blackburn became Naomi’s only friend.

As he recovered from his wounds, Jacob was anxious to return to Blowing Rock and to his new wife, Naomi, and their child who was growing in Naomi’s womb.

Before he arrived home, he learned from his parents that Naomi had died in childbirth and was buried in the church graveyard in a casket placed in the grave dug by his friend Blackburn.

But with Naomi believed to be dead, Jacob found it impossible to settle into anything close to a happy life.

Ron Rash’s great storytelling gifts give his readers a satisfying ending to Jacob’s struggle.

D.G. Martin , a retired lawyer, served as the UNC System’s vice president for public affairs and hosted PBS-NC’s “North Carolina Bookwatch.”

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