Davis (English and southern studies, Mercer U.) presents John L. Spivak's novel Georgia Nigger (1932), along with an introduction to the novel in historical context, additional documents Spivak gathered during his investigation of the abuses of the Depression-era prison system, and b&w photos and reports of individuals on chain gangs. Drawing on Spivak's access to chain gangs through the Georgia Prison Commission, the novel fictionalizes and exposes the abuses of the institutionalized system of sharecropping, debt peonage, and exorbitant chain gang sentences that trapped many southern blacks in a cycle of labor exploitation. The novel describes how the son of black sharecroppers was released from a chain gang then re-arrested and bound over to a white planter as a peon. He escapes only to be arrested again as a vagrant and sentenced to another chain gang. Annotation 2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
