Tobacco Road (play) Tobacco Road (play) Tobacco Road is a play by Jack Kirkland first performed in 1933, based on the 1932 novel of the same name by Erskine Caldwell. The play ran on Broadway for a total of 3,182 performances, becoming the longest-running play in history at the time. As of 2018, it was still the 19th longest-running Broadway show in history, as well as being the second-longest running non-musical ever on Broadway. "Tobacco Road" opened on Broadway at the Theatre Masque (now the John Golden Theatre) on December 4, 1933, transferred to the 48th Street Theatre (demolished in 1955), where it
The Road Through the Wall The Road Through the Wall The Road Through the Wall is a 1948 novel by author Shirley Jackson. It draws upon Jackson's own experiences growing up in Burlingame, California. "The Road Through the Wall" was Jackson's first novel. She began writing it while her husband, literature critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, was writing a book of literary analysis, titled "The Armed Vision". Jackson loosely based the novel on her childhood, growing up in an affluent California neighborhood. She also admitted that she wrote the book, in part, to get back at her parents, whom she resented for their narrow-mindedness and greed,