SUNDAY'S ORPHAN

In Gentile’s historical novel, a Georgia town can’t stop the coming of Jim Crow, or the violence it brings.

Before his death in 1930, Taylor Crawford, who was White, used his money and influence to wield authority in Martonsville that kept it free of racist laws and policies. Numerous Black families live on the property of his Mearswood Island Plantation, and his adopted orphan daughter, Promise Mears Crawford, who’s White, works side by side with the farm’s Black foreman, Fletcher Hart. From Taylor, Fletcher learned history, philosophy, and the psychology of Sigmund Freud, and he looks forward to attending Harvard Medical School to become a doctor. Fletcher’s “mam,” Mother Hart, is a midwife and healer, and delivers babies, cures, and salves in Martonsville to the town’s Black and White citizens. Promise inherits the plantation when Taylor dies, and at first, her only problems are the unexpected discovery of mismanagement of the farm’s finances, and her own looming marriage to a local named Andrew Gills.Yet almost immediately, she faces the serpent that Taylor worked so hard to keep out of his Eden: Daffron Mears, a violent supporter of Jim Crow policies whose family once owned the plantation, which he seeks to reclaim. Over the next three days, Daffron’s actions result in a death, a school burning, and the revelation of some of Martonsville’s secrets, including Promise’s true parentage. Gentile brings 1930s Georgia to life, presenting a humid, sweaty town whose characters are tangled up in local history and have unexpected connections. There are no saints in Martonsville, just flawed human beings, and as such, the characters have depth and nuance. Promise’s determination proves to be an impediment to her relationships but gives her inner strength, and Daffron, a sadistic, evil man, is revealed to be a victim of abuse himself. The book lays bare the cruelty and hypocrisy of Jim Crow throughout the novel, and its greatest strength is in how it sets up mysteries and gut-punch reveals. Readers will sometimes need a moment to catch their breath, even as they keep turning pages.

A character-driven story that effectively captures the harrowing violence of the early-20th-century South.