Asa Carter/Forrest Carter.
I’d be hard-pressed to name two novels that affected me more growing up than “Gone to Texas” (“The Rebel Outlaw Josey Wales”) and “Watch For Me On the Mountain” (aka “Cry Geronimo!”) by Forrest Carter.
Somehow I missed his most famous work, “The Education of Little Tree,” which I’ve never read.
But those two novels and the lesser “Vengeance Trail of Josey Wales” fit right in with all the landmarks I discovered or created in building my own cultural and mythic landscape.
They were anti-establishment, almost anarchist. The idea that governments can’t be trusted but strong, brave, honorable men can be resonated with me as a teen and — though my worldview is a little more sophisticated than it was when I was 15 — it does to this day.
The books extolled the virtues of independent mountaineers and had a certain romantic guerrilla sensibility. Carter’s Geronimo pursued guerrilla warfare as a sort of mystic art. His villains were the agents of state power — American Federals or Mexican Federales — who wouldn’t leave, couldn’t leave, a mountain warrior be.
Carter died in 1979. “The Education of Little Tree” — his purported autobiography — caught fire. People liked its earthy, close-to-the-land message of harmony. It was a fraud.
The success of the novel and the enigmatic nature of its author led to some digging — and that digging disturbed some skeletons. Forrest Carter turned out to be Asa “Ace” Carter, a Klansman and Alabama governor George Wallace’s principal speechwriter. Before “Little Tree,” his most famous words, spoken by Wallace, were: “Segregation Now! Segregation Tomorrow! Segregation Forever!”
And it wasn’t just talk, either. Carter was apparently a violent racist bully who his distant cousin and George Wallace biographer Dan Carter called “something of a psychopath.”
That’s a neck-cracker. This guy who wrote sensitive and genuinely nuanced portrayals of ethnic characters was an out-and-out racist asshole. Disappointing to think that what seemed to my 15-year-old mind a principled anti-statist message had its genesis in resisting the guvmint’s intrusion into the god-given right to keep the black man down.
Kinda casts things in a different light…
What the hell was going on there? Was Carter’s change of identities a way of escaping his past? Was he seeking some kind of redemption? Was it just a con? Maybe he really was just batshit crazy.
The estimable Allen Barra wrote a piece back in 2001 for Slate on the Carter saga and I think this bit likely hits close to the mark:
American Indian activist Vine Deloria, Jr. long ago noted that white American men who would bristle at the suggestion that they had African or Asian blood are often quick to claim Indian ancestry so long as the connection is on the mother’s side (as Carter said his was) and Cherokee (also as Carter claimed)….
…many American males see a spiritual kinship between their ancestors, the savage Celts and Anglo-Saxons, and the American Indian, and to be born with Indian blood somehow better justifies being born with a chip on one’s shoulder than being born white.
Carter’s story came to a sordid end.
One night in June (1979), Carter stopped off to visit one of his sons in Potosi, just south of Abilene. Perhaps two hours later, an ambulance arrived to pick up Forrest Carter’s body. The death certificate listed “aspiration of food and clotted blood” as probable cause. It also mentioned a “history of fights.” A story circulated that Carter had gotten into a drunken fight with his son and choked on his own vomit; one of the ambulance drivers said the scenario fit. An old friend from Birmingham conjectured that a fight between father and son broke out over the treatment of Carter’s wife, whom he apparently deserted in Florida.
Racist. Drunk. Charlatan. Helluva storyteller.
There’s a documentary released just this week on public television that explores this strange tale. “The Reconstruction of Asa Carter” looks fascinating. Friends watching Asa Carter rave about the black man and saying “this is not the person I knew.” Another says Carter was “one of the most complex people I’ve ever known, and you wonder if anyone really knew him. Sometimes you wonder if he ever really knew himself.”
I can’t help being drawn to stories like this. I guess it feeds my sense that we’re all strangers in a strange land — especially to ourselves.
John Maddox Roberts says
As with Roman Polanski and many, many others, we have to separate the person from the art. If we were to admire only art created by people of sterling character, we would have very little art to admire. Historically, artists have had a larger share of humanity’s more repulsive characteristics proportionally to their gifts. They have been philanderers, thieves, racists, perverts and murderers. And they have created works of immortal beauty. For every Franz Liszt or Leonardo da Vinci, both of whom were personable, beloved men, there have been a hundred Wagners, Michelangelos and Mozarts, artists of tremendous talent who were awful human beings.
Lane Batot says
How I LOVE “Forrest” Carter’s books–ESPECIALLY “The Education Of Little Tree”–I lived a lifestyle for many years in the N. C. /Tennessee mountains with my hounds and other canines not dissimilar from the book(including abject Appalachian poverty!)–so I could really relate. And despite not necessarily being completely historically accurate, his Geronimo novel “Watch For Me On The Mountain”–I think– captured the spirit of the fighting Apaches better than any author out there–and believe me, I’ve read kuhzillions of Apache books!(Eve Ball was probably a very close–and more historically accurate–2nd). I. too was terribly disillusioned to find out about the REAL Asa Carter, but the FACTS are, he wrote some fantastic, ANTI-racial books, and anti-government control themes–Little Tree is chockerblock full of them too–you MUST get a copy! It is a BEAUTIFUL little book! I feel his books WERE an effort at reconciliation later in life, and am very willing to forgive the guy his large imperfections and give him credit where credit is due, and no one should reject his books and refuse to read or recommend them because of the author’s previous human foibles. I also read where, his acquaintances/friends in later life were all very suprised and shocked to discover his sordid past–including Clint Eastwood, who worked with Carter during the filming of “The Outlaw Josey Wales”(based on Carter’s book “Gone To Texas”). One thing I REALLY liked about Carter’s books–he obviously had some knowledge and appreciation for a good hound! And though his historical facts may not be perfect, his portrayals of people, places, and activities are dead on. May his books always be available!
JimC says
Thanks for stopping by, Lane. Agree with you about Eve Ball. We owe her a lot. And I think Forrest Carter’s stories will live on, while Asa Carter’s rage and hate fades into the past. I got to hear an NPR piece on Carter after I wrote this piece, and the people who knew “Forrest” have chosen to remember him, not Forrest/Asa, so to some extent, he did succeed in reinventing himself.
tuy says
You just have ideological blinders on. I know it sounds like a cliche, as well as condescending and perhaps patronizing, but I don’t think you’re culturally able to understand what the federal government and the various ethnoi who controlled it were doing to the traditional European culture of the South (re: integration) at gunpoint in the 60s and how the majority in these areas felt about it. You live in Oregon, a place whose inhabitants, being primarily white, usually have no idea what it’s like to live surrounded by peoples who are hostile to you, as many groups are to each other. (As an aside, I recall one previous writer for the L.A. weekly making the California-Oregon move like so many of you. He decried the “racist” outlook of so many white Californians in regards to Mexicans, said it was disgusting to him, so he left – to an Oregon town “miles from the nearest traffic light” – and of course, “Mexicans”.)
The modern use of the bizarre term “racist” in your oh-too-typical semi-diatribe about permitted target Carter shows that, though you’ll write about frontiersmen worldwide, it will still be within the accepted parameters established by those who despise said frontiersman. You can’t see it possible that millions of now demonized types are just possibly not able to be summarily written off by the increasingly passé term “racist”.
As for rage and hate, consider the possibility that you’ve never had an opportunity for these emotions to spring forth.
Greg says
Troll…
Go thither into the dark forests and shriek your unhappiness into the earth’s deep hollows.
Greg says
Jim,
I think you hit the nail on the head.
He was a hell of a storyteller, regardless.
Many, many folks whether they be this, that or the other, find a way to create incredible literature, music, art and so on. Their personal lives may be wonderfully stable and positive or just the opposite but still they create.
And in their creations the reader can find nuggets of self discovery or encouragement or wisdom or self-admonition…or reinforcement whether good or evil.
Thanks for this peak into the author – it just adds to the rich wealth of his Work.
rona brown-hall says
get over it. it seems to me he wrote a book for southern folks that needed a hero. if you are not from the south you cannot relate. i told my grandmother when i was a teenager i was moving to new york to become an actor, her reply, ” if you move up there amonst all them yankees i will never speak to you again”. asa/forrest thanks alot for josey wales.
Frances Blake says
One of the best books, if not the best, I have ever read. I would rather have been stranded and had Asa come along than most of the pious, feeble liberal monkeys that are passing judgment on him. Get over yourselves.
Readerwhoreadit says
Very clever must be the one who can swear he/she is able to distinguish the truth and the slander.
The fact is that the denunciation of the hypocrisy which was residing in the spiritual postures of the European invaders embarrassed a lot of readers.
Vengeance by slander?
Clay Ramsay says
The Education of Little Tree is a truly great book. The facts of Asa Carter’s life and point of view only make it all the more amazing as a work of art. Now the book itself is an enigma, much as the author is. Did Carter “see the light” and revise his opinions — for there can be no doubt that the opinions expressed in this novel are completely contradictory to the publicly expressed beliefs of Asa Carter on a variety of issues — anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, intolerance, the power of government to dictate how people live — OR, was Carter an artist of such talent that the could assume a character and belief system that put his own past to shame? I have googled and googled. I cannot find anyone who knew Carter at the time of this life as the author Forrest who can testify one way or another about his beliefs. I have not found any statement by Carter, except what is in his books. My guess is that Carter did see the light, and his books are his confession and redemption. At this moment, having just finished The Education of Little Tree, I cannot think of anyone with whom I more cherish the opportunity of a conversation over dinner and some drams of mountain whiskey than Asa Carter in the years prior to his death.