Forrest Gump (1986) by Winston Groom

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

\Forrest Gump (1986)

by Winston Groom

Mobile, Alabama

Alabama: 18/18

  It was back in August of 2025 that I tackled my first title in the Alabama chapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project.  Now, here we are.  Most of the work was done in November- what stands out is that this was the first state where I decided to eschew Audiobooks on the theory that it would be insufferable having to listen to most of these titles.  I don't regret the decision, which means that I'm running three states ahead in Audiobook titles right now (Florida) while physical books are stuck back in Mississippi and Louisiana.   My Audiobook consumption is dropping precipitously- a trend which started last year but is really apparent this year.

   Forrest Gump is, of course, the source material for the Tom Hanks film.  I was surprised that the book Forres Gump is described more like John Cena, to use a contemporary example, than Tom Hanks.  He is depicted as six foot six and heavily muscled, which, we all know Tom Hanks is not.  Wouldn't call myself a fan of the film (who is?) but of course I saw it like everyone else.  As is to be expected, the book is sharper on the edges than the Ron Howard directed film.  Gump is no racist, but the amount of n words thrown around was disturbing in a book published in the 80's that had little or nothing to say about racism. 

  There's also little of Mobile Alabama in the book- as the movie depicts, Gump appears Zelig-like at many of the most important events of the late 20th century. 

Chicken Dreaming Corn (2004) by Roy Hoffman

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Chicken Dreaming Corn (2004)

by Roy Hoffman

Mobile, Alabama

Alabama: 17/18

   This is the first book wholly centered on the "Jewish experience" in this Chapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America.  I myself have family who settled in Atlanta and later in Florida, so I have some idea about Southern Jews (I'm Jewish), but Chicken Dreaming Corn is a fairly conventional first-generation immigration novel about a family of Romanian Jews living in Mobile Alabama immediately before and during the Great Depression.

  Other than physical location there isn't much to distinguish the events here from similar titles from the New York chapter. Historically, Jews were prevented from owning land in much of Europe, and often physically restricted to urban environments, meaning that few Jewish emigrants became farmers in the United States.  In rural areas, they were travelling salesman and shop keepers.  The frontier nature of the Deep South/Cotton Belt in the early 19th century meant that successful Jews did become plantation owners, and the vice president of the Confederacy was Jewish.  Additionally, Jewish merchants and bankers played a key role in financing crops like cotton and getting them to domestic and foreign markets.

  This book though is just a narrowly depicted family history with none of that complexity of the Jewish experience in the South.