Land grew up in the small-town South, overshadowed by his younger, cuter, more popular brother, Brett.

And Haynes will surely be one of the last authors of this century to take us back to the small-town South of its middle years.

Mr. Hart is used to puzzled stares from people at the thought of Jews in the small-town South.

For the last seven years, he has also produced a daily syndicated comic strip, "Kudzu," which tracks an awkward adolescent in the small-town South.

For the most part it is an engrossing tale, and nicely detailed: the torpid rhythms of life in the small-town South are wonderfully caught.

Next to that room are the baby pictures, wedding portraits, other family memorabilia and mementos of the small-town South that shaped Mr. Carter.

"It's funny, but what's integrated more than anything else is small-town rural South," Professor Greenberg said the other day in his office in Morningside Heights.

"The rural and small-town South is hurting economically, and who do they see in there?"

Although it was not precisely true even then, the Plains of 1976 could serve as a stand-in for the enduring, essential small-town South.