Tobacco Road is a 1932 novel by Erskine Caldwell about Georgia sharecroppers. It was dramatized for Broadway by Jack Kirkland in 1933, and ran for eight years. A 1941 film version, deliberately played mainly for laughs, was directed by John Ford, and the storyline was considerably altered. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Tobacco Road number 91 on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. The novel was included in Life magazine's list of the 100 outstanding books of 1924–1944. Tobacco Road has sold over 10 million copies. Plot introduction Tobacco Road is set in rural Georgia, several miles outside Augusta during the worst years of the Great Depression. It depicts a family of poor white tenant farmers, the Lesters, as some of the many small Southern cotton farmers made redundant by the industrialization of production and the migration into cities. The main character of the novel is Jeeter Lester, an ignorant and sinful man who is redeemed by his love of the land and his faith in the fertility and promise of the soil. Plot summary Lov Bensey, a friend of the Lesters, walks to his home at the train yard coal chute. He has walked seven and a half miles to get a sack of winter turnips for 50 cents, which is half of his daily wage. On his way home, he stops by the Lesters to talk to Jeeter about Jeeter's 12-year-old daughter Pearl, to whom Lov is married. While Lov is talking to Jeeter, the book introduces the reader to 16-year-old Dude, the youngest of the Lester boys; Ada, Jeeter’s wife; Grandma Lester; and Ellie May, an 18-year-old girl with a grotesque cleft lip. The entire family, acting in complete desperation, works to steal the turnips from Lov, who then becomes nauseated by the sight and leaves for home. At this point, the preacher Bessie enters the scene. Sister Bessie Rice, like Ellie May, also has a deformity of the face. Bessie’s nose contains no bone, and so when looking straight at her face one can see straight into her nostrils, like a pig. Despite this, Jeeter is still attracted to her. She does some preaching and praying for everyone’s sins, and then proposes marriage to Dude. However, Dude is more interested in her offer of letting him drive the new automobile that she anticipates purchasing than in actually marrying her.