LEON V. DRISKELL

by Jamie Ballard

Leon V. Driskell was a Georgia native, but he appeared to be a Kentuckian at heart. Through his book, Passing Through, he captures the beauty of the farmlands in Kentucky. He also portrays the hardships of everyday life and how love can always pull one to the top.

Driskell grew up in Athens, Georgia. However, for most of his life he lived in Louisville, Kentucky, with his wife and their five children. Driskell was a creative writing teacher at the University of Louisville and a critic for the Courier Journal. He published short stories in the Carolina Review and the Georgia Review. Three of his stories were listed among the best stories of the year in Best American Short Stories, and he received the Lawrence Award from Prairie Schooner magazine (Ward 407). Mr. Driskell passed away in 1995.

His book, Passing Through, was published in 1983. It is a chronological narrative consisting of nine stories about a family living in Owen County, Kentucky. The Waters family is held together by a sympathetic woman by the name of Pearl Thirwell White, otherwise known as Mama Pearl. She is the head of the household, but she actually is no relation to the family at all. The family consists of Pearl's first husband's first wife's children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. The house actually belongs to the brother and sisters, Erline, Lurline, and Lester.

Driskell creates the characters to be so innocent, one can't help but love them. The family struggles through life everyday living the way they were taught and doing things the way they know to do them. Rosco is an admirer of Mama Pearl, and he lives in the house and helps take care of the kids and the house. Throughout the book, he struggles with the fact that he has cancer. He is in a state of denial and goes about his work as though nothing is wrong. Erline, Lurline, and Lester are brother and sisters. Erline does not live with Mama Pearl, but her daughter, Audrey, does. Erline is the owner of a beauty shop which serves mostly male customers. She enjoys going out, getting drunk and meeting men. It doesn't really seem to bother her much that she isn't raising her daughter. Every now and then she feels guilty, and she will spend a little time with Audrey. Throughout the book, Erline is after a married man, and she tries her best to get him to like her the same way.

Audrey is an eleven-year-old with a passion to become an actress. She is very smart and can memorize things after only one reading. In a lot of her conversations she pretends to be someone else. She loves to think that she is smarter than everyone else, and she corrects others every chance she gets. Lurline is a very interesting character. She got caught forging checks and was placed in the Woman's Detention Center in Louisville. She had signed the name of her brother, Lester, to one of his personal checks for one thousand dollars. In her defense, she says she is saving up a pacemaker for her son, Augie. Though Augie has no need for a pacemaker, she is determined that he needs one, and she is going to see that he gets it.

Augie has a rough life because of his mother. For the longest time he had to pretend that he was sick because his mother thought he was. Augie also has to deal with the cruelty of others because of what his mother did. Many people talk bad about his mother because of what she did. Lurline would not let Augie go to school because she didn't think it was right. Lester is considered the man of the household. At fourteen, everyone depends on him for authority. Throughout the story, Lester has to grow up fast. His parents died while he was very young, and they leave him with Pearl. Erline and Lurline are definitely no role models for him. He more or less takes care of them and their children. Lester tries to do everything on his own. He feels responsible for everyone, and he feels like a failure when things go wrong.

Despite all of the problems the family has, they really seem to enjoy life, and they are thankful for what they have, especially for Mama Pearl. She is the peace and harmony in the family, and loves them all like they are her own. Mama Pearl is the perfect mother for the family. She loves and nurtures the kids, and she teaches them values and morals in life.

Driskell turns this family's hardships into hilarious events. The family lives in a little county where everyone knows everything about each other. The people of Owen County love to talk about the Waters family and their hardships in life.

In the end, Lurline finally gets out of jail and has plans to marry a preacher. Rosco gets through his denial of cancer, and he and Mama Pearl get married. Erline moves back in with the rest of the family and takes more responsibility for Audrey. Lester finally gets a chance to do some living without having to worry as much about the family. Mama Pearl brings the family closer together by helping all of them deal with their problems and overcome their obstacles of everyday life. Through the characters, Driskell makes everything in life seem possible, no matter how hard things are or how little one has.

On the back cover of Passing Through, Bobbie Ann Mason states, "Passing Through is hilarious, but it's also poignant and deeply moving in the strangest ways, because Leon Driskell can trick you into caring more about these funny innocent characters than you thought you were going to. The Waters family is passing through life with vitality and recklessness of the flood that hit Kentucky in 1977. They are all depending on the authority of Uncle Lester, who's fourteen and drives fast, yet you have the feeling that they're going to make it."

After reading Passing Through, one could see why Driskell has received recognition for his writing. He captures the true hearts of Kentuckians through his characters. One could also come to the conclusion that Driskell is truly a Kentuckian at heart.

Ward, William S. A Literary History of Kentucky. Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, 1988. p 407.

Driskell, Leon V. (1983) Passing Through. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Algonquin Books.

by Jamie Ballard

Driskell, Leon V. and Joan T. Brittain. The Eternal Crossroads. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1971.

Driskell, Leon V. Passing Through. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Algonquin Books. 1983.