A Cuban in Mayberry: Looking Back at America’s Hometown by Gustavo Pérez Firmat (review)

Gustavo Pérez Firmat’s latest book, A Cuban in Mayberry: Looking Back at America’s Hometown, proffers a lucid and all-encompassing explication of The Andy Griffith Show, a television comedy that premiered in 1960. It lasted until 1967, being replaced by a sequel, Mayberry R.F.D. (1968–70), centered somewhat along premises comparable to those that ensured the original’s enduring popularity and to some degree relevance. In his monograph, divided in two parts subtitled “The Place” and “The People,” the essayist deconstructs this quintessential depiction of rural Southern Americana circa the 1950s, rather than the politically and socially engaged 1960s whence it emanated. The latter period is not joined, the author infers, until the show began to be produced in color after the first five seasons, forcing Opie, the protagonist’s son, to conclude, “things are different now than when I was a kid” (71).

The book’s initial segment focuses on the genesis and evolution of a series that Pérez Firmat has studied objectively with the discipline and acumen becoming a refined cultural critic. He also approaches it subjectively as the conventional captivated viewer, despite the fact that, in the preface, he identifies himself as a “latecomer to Mayberry” (10), becoming acquainted with the program belatedly in syndication. Focusing on Mayberry’s idealized portrayal as a microcosm reflecting the best attributes of American rural society, the author rather lovingly demythologizes such an arbitrary construct, underscoring the flaws inherent in that sheltered North Carolinian environ, which he terms “a world unto itself” (11). In so doing, he demonstrates thorough familiarity with the series in its totality. Instead of centering exclusively on anecdote and character, Pérez Firmat delves into the decision-making process concerning storylines, casting, the creation of place, differences between The Andy Griffith Show and other series contemporary to it, matters pertaining to production, social intent and so forth. In a sense, these first chapters provide a complete introduction to the program, grounded not only on other critical perspectives, but also on newspaper and magazine articles, interviews with the actors, and Hollywood tabloids, to cite but three sources. Additionally, as a literary analyst, Pérez Firmat often refers to distant secondary references that frame his viewpoint, such as Sherwood Anderson, George Eliot, Walter Benjamin, the twelve authors who penned I’ll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition (indeed, the book’s epigraph is the concluding line from “Tell Me a Story” by poet Robert Penn Warren), and, most prominently, José Ortega y Gasset.

The second part of A Cuban in Mayberry discusses the series’s principal characters, as well as others that prove particularly appealing in light of the author’s outlook and rhetorical stratagem. He refers at once to the personages and to the actors who portray them, once again invariably evincing his familiarity with all facets of The Andy Griffith Show. Of course, Pérez Firmat devotes considerable time to Griffith himself as the star of the program, focusing particularly on his benevolent dictatorial persona and his quasi-asexual nature. He juxtaposes the main character to his sidekick Barney Fife, played by Don Knotts, a relationship which the critic deems crucial to the show’s success during the first years. In “Growing Up, Growing Old (Opie and Floyd),” Pérez Firmat waxes philosophical to demonstrate how the on-screen aging of actors Ron Howard and Howard McNear adds a dose of troublesome reality to the static Mayberrian environment. In other chapters, the essayist inquires into the role of women in the show, the uncomfortably comic recurrence of town drunk Otis Campbell, and perhaps foremost the disruptive, albeit ephemeral appearances of “Southern wild beasts” (126) Ernest T. Bass and the Darlings.

Pérez Firmat justifies his visit to Mayberry in an eloquent introduction entitled “To the Fishing Hole,” and the equally seductive epilogue that bears the book’s title...