Erskine Caldwell
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Every time I enter that bar early in the morning, he's there, but maybe it's just a coincidence. Perhaps while he's diligently doing what he's doing, his neurons are having the same thought as mine. It's likely that when I can't see him, he vigorously shakes his head with body language that decisively states "don't you own a moka pot, idiot?" I drink my coffee at the table and browse through the newspapers full of the usual miseries, some intriguing curiosity, rare four-leaf clovers. When I leave, I can't help but give him one last look, and it seems there's glass over his iris, as if he's elsewhere or has completely lost his mind; accidentally slipped on the floor. I watch him press those damn colorful buttons haphazardly and insert another euro, the fifth in a few minutes, into the narrow iron slot that, greedy and ravenous, devours his savings. His mind must believe that this is the lucky time for a substantial win: in fact, with my negative influences, I'm getting out of the way. And that's for sure.

Ty Ty isn’t old, he’s just doomed. We're in the years of more or less depression, and he has the worst disease one can have. Gold fever has the guise of a fine dust that you can't shake off even if it were the only way to save your soul: worse than alcohol, cigarettes, even the inviting thighs of the brothel women he frequented. But Ty Ty is also very religious and has always wanted to give a part of his land to the Lord. For the past 27 years, every product from the Lord's field goes to the church because he is proud to share with God the little he owns. To be picky, he doesn't grow anything there apart from weeds and rattlesnakes, and if we wanted to be even more fastidious, he often changes its location because when he decides to dig a new hole, it always ends up being right in the Lord's field. And since Ty Ty is against digging in God's land, heaven forbid, there's no other solution but to move the divine ground to another part of the farm every time. Every single time! It would be a disaster if the gold were really in the "little field" and the nuggets obsessively searched for three decades had to be donated to the church.

I believe this passage is a tremendous and irreverent snapshot, of rare impact and strength, of the weakness and pettiness of the human being. I love the content of this tiny part of an early chapter of the book and envy, almost to the point of hatred, the way it is written. There are so many other insights in these sharp 200 pages, but I don't want to spoil anything for you and for once will try to be more concise and verbose than usual. I’ve read 4 books by Erskine Caldwell, and I must admit that not even "Tobacco Road" compares to it. "God's Little Acre" is an extraordinary work: devoid of the superfluous, lean, tough, and without the slightest trace of rhetoric, it can describe reality with that sarcasm, cynicism, and realism that rivals even the best of Steinbeck.

Only that "Of Mice and Men" is a title that everyone knows, at least by name, whereas I believe this book is unfairly unknown to most. I spend this half-hour strongly inviting you to read it.