MILLER, Caroline Pafford

Born 26 August 1903, Waycross, Georgia

Wrote under: Caroline Miller

Daughter of Elias and Levy Zan Pafford; married William D.Miller, circa 1921; Clyde H. Ray; children: three

Caroline Pafford Miller was raised near the Georgia backwoods and spent most of her adult life there. Her knowledge of the area and its people inspired Miller to write Lamb in His Bosom (1933, reprinted 1993), which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and the first part of Lebanon (1944), her only other novel. Miller and her first husband, her high school English teacher, had three children.

Lamb in His Bosom chronicles the life of Cean Carver Smith from her marriage in the mid-19th century to the Reconstruction era. Cean is a typical Georgia backwoods woman; she endures hard work, infant deaths, fire, snakebite, lonely childbirth, attacking panthers, and the death of a son in the Civil War. An important secondary character is her brother Lias, whose philandering and thirst for adventure are unexampled in the community.

Lebanon is certainly not the equal of Lamb in His Bosom. Although the locale is the Georgia backwoods and the interest in the wilderness life remains, the protagonist, Lebanon Fairgale, is a bit too much the complete frontierswoman. She can kill any critter and cure any disease from colic to the Pest, although surgery doesn't seem to be her line. When her rifle accidentally shoots off her lover's hand and when her face is clawed by a "pet" bear, someone else has to do the stitching. These catastrophes would be enough, but in addition Lebanon suffers desertion by her lover, infidelity by her husband, the deaths of her husband, humpback child, and adopted child, and false accusations of sodomy, harlotry, and murder. In the end she marries a preacher.

Miller is at her best in the evocation of routine frontier life and in the lyrical, loving depiction of Georgia; indeed, her attempt to move Lebanon out of Georgia into an unidentified wilderness is one of the second novel's major flaws. Miller is at her worst in constructing melodramatic, action-packed plots, which she evidently feels her books need. Yet, despite the plot and Miller's prose, which may be too lyrical for the brutal, uneducated lives she describes, Lamb in His Bosom is beautiful, peaceful, and satisfying—a poem to the past, particularly to the past of the "frontier" woman.

Bibliography:

Spell, V. E., "Caroline Miller, Laureate of the Wiregrass" (thesis 1984).

Reference works:

TCA, TCAS.

Other references:

Boston Transcript (20 Sept. 1933). Literary Digest (12 May 1934). NR (20 Sept. 1933). Newsweek (12 May 1934). NYT (8 May 1933, 17 Sept. 1933, 15 Nov. 1933). PW (12 May 1934).

—CYNTHIA L. WALKER