We Are the Living

Viking Press published the collection in September 1933. 16 of its 20 stories were previously published in various magazines, while four -- "The Medicine Man," "Meddlesome Jack," "The Grass Fire," and "A Woman in the House"—were new.{{cite book |last1=MacDonald |first1=Scott |title=Critical Essays on Erskine Caldwell |date=1981 |publisher=G-K. Hall |isbn=9780816182992 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RVQJAAAAIAAJ |access-date=14 April 2023}}

Some stories in the collection are humorous or satirical, while others are lyrical, romantic and/or tragic. Several of them are laid against the background of the lives of ordinary people in the contemporary US South, the social milieu most familiar to the author; some are specifically located in his home state of Georgia.

The stories in the book include:

• "Warm River"
• "We Are Looking at You, Agnes"
• "The People's Choice"
• "Indian Summer"
• "Rachel"
• "The Medicine Man"
• "Picking Cotton"
• "Meddlesome Jack"
• "The Picture"
• "Yellow Girl"
• "August Afternoon"
• "Mama's Little Girl"
• "The First Autumn"
• "After-Image"
• "Crown-Fire"
• "The Empty Room"
• "Over the Green Mountains"
• "The Grass Fire"
• "A Woman in the House"
• "Country Full of Swedes"

Biographer Wayne Mixon wrote that We are the Living largely "went unnoticed in the southern press." Mixon suggests that the inclusion of "August Afternoon"—a story about a lazy white farmer, a drifter who seduces the farmer's wife, and his Black field hand who refuses Vic's order to accost him—was to blame.{{cite book |last1=Mixon |first1=Wayne |title=The People's Writer: Erskine Caldwell and the South |date=1995 |publisher=University of Virginia Press |isbn=978-0-8139-1627-9 |page=58 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gDcznp8Z988C |access-date=14 April 2023 |language=en}}

TIME magazine, reviewing the collection in 1933, highlighted Caldwell's more bawdy, humorous stories as standouts. Of those, they wrote: "Mark Twain would have roared over [these stories] -- in private."{{cite news |title=Books: U. S. Humorist |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,746154,00.html |access-date=14 April 2023 |agency=TIME |date=2 October 1933}}

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• [http://cgi.ebay.it/Erskine-Caldwell-We-Are-The-Living-1933-1st-Edition_W0QQitemZ380160842037QQcmdZViewItemQQssPageNameZRSS:B:SILF:IT:105 Cover of the first edition]

{{Erskine Caldwell}}

Category:1933 short story collections

Category:American short story collections

Category:Viking Press books

Category:Works by Erskine Caldwell