| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.1

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 94.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

A Talent for Living: Josephine Pinckney and the Charleston Literary Tradition. By Barbara L. Bellows. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006. xviii, 301 pp. $45.00, ISBN 978-0-8071-3163-3.)
Writing about literary figures is especially challenging because one must constantly confront both the subject and the subject's works: understanding one is a formidable assignment; but achieving balance between the two is daunting. Barbara L. Bellows has undertaken the task of resurrecting from obscurity a once well-known poet and novelist. Bellows, a native of Charleston, enjoys a distinctive perspective, but she only partially succeeds in her goal of identifying Josephine Pinckney's place in literary history.	1
Born in 1895 into an aristocratic world of privilege and responsibility, Pinckney cultivated a streak of independence, distancing herself from her eminent family, especially her overbearing mother. Bellows adopts a chronological approach to trace Pinckney's evolution. Coming of age with the rise of the modern South, Pinckney responded to pivotal events in the history of her country and region. Wars and the Great Depression were dominant influences. Bellows vigorously champions Pinckney's role in Charleston's twentieth-century flowering, emphasizing Pinckney's five novels, her volumes of poetry, and, particularly, her efforts to preserve the religious and cultural vernacular of her community.	. . .

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