Samp Water A Novel [Paperback]

VEREEN BELL (1911–1944) wrote fiction and magazine articles set in the outdoors of the American South. His books include Swamp Water, Two of a Kind, and Brag Dog and Other Stories. Bell served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and was killed in action during the Battle for Leyte Gulf.Swamp Water, the first novel by a young native of south Georgia, was an immediate critical and financial success. The setting is the mysterious Okefenokee in southern Georgia—"the Swamp that pulled a man down and never let him go." Movie versions were made in 1941 (by Jean Renoir) and in 1951.

Swamp Water is, in a sense, melodrama—a fast, taut, somewhat lurid yarn. . . . Mr. Bell, however, knows his people and his background so thoroughly, writes with so much simplicity and directness and such a complete lack of sensationalism, that his story is lifted above the category of the merely thrilling and picturesque. Swamp Water, in fact, is not only a very good tale but very nearly a brilliant one.

This is the sort of American story Americans take to their bosoms, and with good reason.

Swamp Water, the first novel by a young native of south Georgia, was an immediate critical and financial success. The setting is the mysterious Okefenokee in southern Georgia—"the Swamp that pulled a man down and never let him go."