Tim A. Ryan echoes this statement, writing, "Kyle Onstott's sensationalist "Mandingo" (1957) turns the myth of Tara on its head with unashamed vulgarity." And the myth extended beyond literature to real life beliefs about the Antebellum South. Smithers writes that "Two of the most enduring fictions to emerge in Lost Cause mythology were the trope of the chivalrous white southern male and the dutiful (and asexual) white woman." That Onstott so thoroughly skewered these beloved beliefs of those who glamorized the Antebellum South shows how radical a novel "Mandingo" was, despite its flaws.