AN HOUR BEFORE DAYLIGHT.

• Author: KREYCHE, GERALD F.
• Position: Review

AN HOUR BEFORE DAYLIGHT BY JIMMY CARTER SIMON AND SCHUSTER 2001, 286 PAGES, $26.00

The 39th president of the U.S.'s 16th book essentially is a nostalgic recollection of his years growing up in rural Georgia. The work gives readers an insight into how Jimmy Carter's character was formed, who his role models were, and the kind of life he led trying to get through the Great Depression. Senior citizens will recognize themselves in those times of barefoot days, hard work, and much simple fun with childhood friends.

Carter was born in the county seat of Plains, Ga., and the Carter family moved to Archery, a nearby rural town, when he was four years old. There, he spent most of his youth. The town, which no longer is on the map, was a typical farm community, and Carter's father was an upper-middle-class farmer. The former president explains how strict, but fair and frugal, his father was in all business dealings. We are also let in on the secret that, when "Daddy" was angry or displeased with Jimmy, he always called him by that name, a sure tip-off something was the matter. Otherwise, he was best known as Hot or Hotshot.

The title of the book indicates the time work started on farms then as now. Almost all the workers for the Carters were blacks, and Jimmy fit in with many as close friends. He even used their speech patterns when in their company, but spoke the white man's dialect with others. In those pre-civil rights days, there always was an invisible wall between blacks and whites, and both races, for the most part, felt this and accepted it.

There were two churches in town, one the Baptist congregation to which Carter's family belonged, the other a Methodist one which Jimmy occasionally attended, swaying, singing, and foot stomping with the black parishioners. The...