The Bitterweed Path

Long out-of-print but rediscovered in this new edition, Thomas Hal Phillips' novel tells the story of two boys growing up in the cotton country of Mississippi a generation after the Civil War. Originally published in 1950, the novel's unique interest lies in its subtle treatment of same-sex love across class lines.

The Bitterweed Path vividly invokes life in Mississippi at the turn of the twentieth century. In elegant prose drawing on the Old Testament story of David and Jonathan, the author tells of the relationship between two boys--one a white sharecropper's son, the other the son of the wealthy land owner, a man whose own attentions complicate the plot when they fall upon his son's friend. Part of a small body of early twentieth century gay literature, The Bitterweed Path does not sensationalize homosexuality but instead portrays it as part of a continuum of human behavior. The result is a book that challenges modern assumptions about the portrayal in novels of gay characters during the era before Stonewall.