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Tax-exempt? Reader's Guide | Chicken Dreaming Corn At turns lyrical, comic, and melancholy, the tale takes inspiration from its title. This Romanian expression with an Alabama twist is symbolic of the strivings of ordinary folks for the realization of their hopes and dreams. Set largely on a few humble blocks yet engaging many parts of the world, this Southern Jewish novel is, ultimately, richly American. Roy Hoffman is the author of the novel Almost Family, winner of the Lillian Smith Award for fiction, and the nonfiction collection, Back Home. A native of Mobile, Alabama, he worked in New York City for twenty years as a journalist, speechwriter, and teacher, before returning to the South as staff writer at the Mobile Register. Hoffman's reviews and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Fortune, Southern Living, and other publications. He lives in Fairhope, Alabama, and travels to Louisville, Kentucky, where he teaches in the brief-residency MFA in Writing Program at Spalding University. March 2006 ISBN 0820328162 paper • $18.95 256 pp. • 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 in."Read this novel to find, from Europe and the past, characters who represent some of the best aspects of our Southern heritage. A story of great appeal in prose lean and clean. Congratulations to Roy Hoffman for his fine work." —Eli Evans, author of The Provincials"I am especially impressed with the international demographic dimension of this strongly evocative Gulf Coast-area downhome novel. These old downtown Mobile bargain stores are as much a part of my memories of my boyhood years out near the Magazine Point Loop of the old Wilson Streetcar Line as are Bienville Square, Hammels Department Store, the corner of Dauphin and Royal, the Battle House, the old L & N Railroad Station near the waterfront at the foot of Government Street. Not to mention the truck-farm produce from across the bay and the moss-dripping trees along the route to those old annual church picnic beaches down the bay! And yet, the narrative that unfolds in this local-color-rich visual setting is nothing if not another element of the natural history of mainstream USA." —Albert Murray, author of Train Whistle Guitar"Roy Hoffman writes like a dream. He has found an underexplored literary corner of the Southern experience-the life and assimilation of immigrant Jews-and records their odyssey, interior and exterior, with heart-breaking exactitude." —Diane McWhorter, author of Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama and the Climatic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution"[Hoffman's] story bears testimony to the struggle that any first generation immigrant goes through. In [his] deliberate and skillful hands, their story becomes universal."-Bill Aron, author of Shalom Y'all: Images of Jewish Life in the American South "Like all great books, Chicken Dreaming Corn enriches the reader's understanding of his own humanity and advocates our tolerance and love for one another. In bursts of generosity, with all their warts and shortcomings visible, the characters seize their own lives and a piece of the reader's heart. I only wish I could adequately express what a moving and fulfilling experience reading Chicken Dreaming Corn was for me."-Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife "Hoffman blends his family's hand-me-down Romanian emigre experiences with Alabama folkways. Swirls and eddies of life-giving soil wash downstream into the bottom lands of his tales. In between floods of tearful life-and-death episodes flow verdant growth and the upward mobility of generations."-Chris Waddle, The Anniston Star "Chicken Dreaming Corn connotes the high hopes and expectations of this immigrant generation. Inspired by stories about his own grandfather, novelist Roy Hoffman captures the texture of one Jewish family's experience in the Deep South as well as the personality of its dedicated, indomitable patriarch."-Reform Judaism "An amiable and moving portrait of family life and small-town history."-Kirkus Reviews"This tender and insightful look at Mobile's immigrant community is wonderful contribution to the literature."-Dear Reader (Square Books newsletter) "Graced by warm, deft characterizations and a profound appreciation of family, work, faith and community Chicken Dreaming Corn is this city's great immigration novel. . The triumph of Chicken Dreaming Corn is that it conjures this lost Mobile, bringing it believably and brilliantly to life. Under Hoffman's magical spell, this densely packed, vibrant world, with its brick and frame buildings, cypress block-paved streets and colorful residents, is reconstituted, filled with the sounds of many languages and the odors of cigars, fruit and animal droppings. . Morris Kleinman emerges as one of the most likable and sympathetic characters in recent Southern literature. The best fiction enlarges and deepens our understanding. In Hoffman's gently-crafted, humane and moving tale, we gain a convincing picture of why so many immigrants risked so much to come to these shores."-John Sledge, The Mobile Register "Hoffman takes a poignant, illuminating look at immigrant Jews in the deep-dish South, inspired by his grandparents' lives at the turn of the century in Mobile, AL. . The past is never really over, and in Hoffman's world at least, the chicken gets the corn more often than not."-Entertainment Weekly "More than a novel about regional cultures, this Alabama author's story describes the melding of multiple races, religions, and languages during the country's-and one family's-most devastating time. . In an author's note, Hoffman explains, 'Chicken dreaming corn is an expression my Romanian Jewish grandmother used to refer to the yearnings of ordinary folks for something special or extraordinary . I figure my grandmother gave an Alabama twist to the expression.' So, too, does the author with this novel."-Southern Living "Hoffman weaves a rich tapestry from multiple literary threads-a Jewish story, an immigrant story, a Southern story-creating a novel so strong and seamless that it quickly becomes universal. And when Morris Kleinman offers these words of comfort near the book's end, 'We are all like the birds-the chickens, says my Miriam-yearning for their bread, dreaming their corn,' the reader cannot help but agree."-Tamara Titus, Charlotte Observer "Hoffman's reverberations of Romania in Alabama whisper the ancient continuities of faith and culture transplanted to Southern ground. For Southern fiction, these are familiar stories, tragic and sublime, with an unusual cast of characters. For Jewish fiction, these are familiar characters in unaccustomed tales."-Thomas Bell, Creative Loafing (Atlanta) "There are many Souths with their corners. . Roy Hoffman has done a fine job of telling his Alabama story. Mazel tov."-Don Noble, Alabama Public Radio "Hoffman plucks many heartstrings, but also tickles the funny bone in this finely wrought, memorable novel that evokes the sights, sounds and smells of a bygone era in wonderful descriptions and pitch-perfect dialogue."-Culture & Leisure Magazine "Beautifully written, this is a sweetheart of a book, with moments of courage, tenderness, and ineffable sweetness."-Susan Larson, New Orleans Times-Picayune "In simple, unsentimental prose, Roy Hoffman's lyrical novel, "Chicken Dreaming Corn," traces the Jewish immigrant's journey from the Romanian village of his youth to this colorful neighborhood in the steamy southern port of Mobile."-Jennifer Siegel, The Forward "[A] thought-provoking novel.Long after the story has ended, the reader will be left with a sense of hearing the early-morning sound of Morris' broom proudly sweeping the walk in front of his store."-Reba J. McMellon, The Sun Herald "Hoffman's writing flows from page one, a mix of narrative and dialogue that intrigued me with details that create vivid pictures of Kleinman's store, his cigar-smoking cronies and Pastor, the Cuban who makes the cigars, the cemetery Kleinman visits regularly to speak with those already gone and the changes in Mobile that the Kleinmans experience throughout the passing years. For those of you who have your own unsatisfied dreams, whether attainable or not, Chicken Dreaming Corn is a good read, one that will satisfy at least one of your desires: to spend some time curled up on the couch with a good book."-Lynette Hanson, Jackson Free Press "[A] fascinating look at an immigrant's life as he puts down roots in Mobile in the first half of the 20th century."-Hal Jacobs, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution "There are many Souths with their corners. . Meanwhile, Roy Hoffman has done a fine job of telling his Alabama story. Mazel tov."-Don Noble, The Anniston Star "In a novel that reads like a biography, the reader follows Morris from 1916 through 1945-two world wars and the Depression-and in so doing tells the story of a family that, like the chicken in the Romanian saying, dreams of corn, dreams of fulfilling rich expectations. . [N]otable for its Southern setting and the realities of racial and religious tension, underscored by occasional bursts of Klan violence."-Jewish Book World "At turns lyrical, comic, and melancholy ."-Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal "[I]ntriguing novel . Hoffman skillfully depicts the way in which Southerners were haunted by the Civil War . By telling the story of the fictional Kleinmans so eloquently, Hoffman has made a significant contribution towards an overall comprehension of American Jewry."-M.T., International Jerusalem Post "[E]vocative novel . [I]n the most moving parts of the novel, he discovers the depth of his roots in Mobile. He understands that his refuge, and the hope of displaced peoples throughout the world, is America. Here you can taste your dreams."-Barbara Fisher, Boston Sunday Globe "Hoffman has made vivid a slice of American life that is not often thought of. . . . I highly recommend this understated but compelling novel."-Trudi E. Jacobson, The Historical Novels Review "a quirky yet soulful story ... As unique as the title indicates, the story is one of love and friendship, identity and religion; a story reminding us that the human experience is a shared one that transcends cultural boundaries ... At times comical and at other times heartrending, the day-to-day experiences of the Kleinmans are inspiring."-Spartanburg Herald-Journal |
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