A stirring tale rooted in the language and experience of the Alabama community it depicts.
In this debut historical novel, a Southern African-American enclave struggles with a public tragedy.
In the early 1960s, the African-American community in Sipsey, Alabama, is rocked by a scandal centered on a woman named Candida Ellen “Sweetberry” Armstrong. Sweetberry has spent two decades working menial cleaning jobs, raising two college-bound daughters as a single mother, and carrying on an affair with a prominent married man, Deacon Josiah Hess. Her hard times seem to finally be over when she becomes engaged to Luther McGill, a local man who went to Philadelphia to make his fortune—through both legal and illegal means—and returned home a success. But this dream is shattered when Hess beats McGill to death in a jealous rage outside the First Macedonia Baptist Church. The novel builds from this central tragedy, exploring the causes of the trauma, and its effects on not only Sweetberry and her family, but the entire community. Much of this plays out in the courtroom at Hess’ trial, in front of an all-white jury. Sipsey—and more specifically, First Macedonia—is as much at the heart of the book as Sweetberry herself. The novel’s greatest asset is Gosa-Summerville’s ear for the language of the townsfolk, and her ability to interweave their different voices together. Early in the novel, a communal narrative voice responds to a rumor of Sweetberry’s suicide attempt: “This drew blood from the turnip! How dare she? Wasn’t she God’s creation?” The book’s language is further enriched with the seamless inclusion of hymns. In one moving scene, Sweetberry’s plaintive call of “Who shall I be?” is answered with the spiritual “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho.” The author’s handling of the story is a bit less smooth. Events and information are often telegraphed, over-summarized, and repeated in different ways. Little is held back, so the various plot points, while intriguing, never come to the reader as surprises or revelations. This could be a leaner, more shapely novel. Still, the sound of each page is a pleasure.
A stirring tale rooted in the language and experience of the Alabama community it depicts.Pub Date: May 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5238-4274-2
Page Count: 414
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
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