THE NIGHT OF THE BURNING CAR

Two victims of abuse in mid-20th-century America fight for justice and survival.

In the summer of 1948, 22-year-old Billy Dalton is driving home through Kane County, North Carolina, when he comes across two cars blocking the road. One of these drives off as the other explodes, and Billy helps a young woman and her toddler daughter escape from the burning vehicle. Billy himself is badly burned and wakes in the hospital to find that nobody believes his story; there is no sign of the woman or her child or evidence of any cars other than his own. Racism is endemic in Kane County, as Billy, a White man, starts to realize when he is charged with drunken driving and placed in a jail, where he expresses concern over a Black inmate’s eye injury. The prisoner explains, “The jailer’s the one who gave it to me. They come get us and then take us out and beat us up anytime they want. No reason. Just because they can. They mostly leave white folks alone.” Billy is imprisoned without proper medical attention. His wounds fester, and he emerges badly disfigured to begin a new, unhappy life. The woman, it transpires, does exist. She is 22-year-old Lacey Evers, the unacknowledged daughter (through rape) of Judge Harkins, the corrupt presiding jurist of Kane County. United years later, can she and Billy find the justice they were denied? The narrative is simple but effective, buoyed by unforced dialogue that allows the story’s emotional impact to emerge naturally. Though Kane County is fictitious, the institutional corruption and power imbalance feel all too real. Unfortunately, Lubitz’s portrayal of the abominable treatment of Black people in America, a strong thematic thread throughout the novel, doesn’t quite ring true—not because such mistreatment didn’t exist but because the racial slurs are excessively softened, and Lubitz introduces a White character who helpfully calls it out. That said, Lacey and Billy are vivid representatives of a historical period that was all too frequently characterized by gross injustice. Their respective plights will invest readers in their story, and their endurance and eventual flourishing cannot help but inspire.

An immersive and affecting story of injustice and an exemplification of the unbreakable human spirit.