The Kentuckians, by John Fox, Jr., '83. Harper Bros.
In "The Kentuckians," Mr. Fox writes of his mother state and her people with such insight and sympathy as show him to be a true son of Kentucky and an affectionate brother to Kentuckians of all kinds. For in this story the author has acquainted us with the blue-grass country, as typical in its way as that where the Cumberland Vendetta flourished and Mr. Shivers came to his death at last.
In writing of the blue-grass, however, Mr. Fox has by no means deserted the mountaineer, for Boone Stallard is certainly the more striking and convincing of the two chief figures in the story, although possibly Randolph Marshall is the real hero. There can be no doubt as to the heroine, for only one woman is more than the merest sketch.
This is one of the proofs that Mr. Fox has chosen a simple theme, almost perilously simple in its freedom from machinery of any kind. But the story is told with a directness and grace that give it a charm, lacking in many more elaborate literary structures.
It is extraordinarily refreshing to find that Mr. Fox has written his book in his own way, not in Kipling's or Stevenson's.
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