It was hard for me not to
think of C. E. Morgan’s The Sport of Kings, a novel that came out last year,
while reading Eleanor Henderson’s The Twelve-Mile Straight. Not only are they
very long second novels written by young female writers, there themes of race,
our countries history of racism and life in the integrated yet racially hostile
south, it is easy to put these two novels in the same category and think of
them as sort of literary cousins, based on the similarities above and the
proximity of when they were published. And while I liked The Sport of Kings,
for it’s elegant dreamlike prose and rich characters, I have a feeling I will
like this novel more because it’s elements will linger longer in my mind long
after I finished it. Like The Sport of Kings, it is a brilliant look at the
American South, both long at 539 pages but intimate as well, focusing on a
single event which has dire implications for not only the future but the past
of all parties involved. It is a smoother novel than Morgan’s, while maintaining
a rich intricacy that asks a lot of the reader and rewards them generously. The
event in question is a brutal one. Accused of raping the daughter of
sharecropper he is employed by, Genus Jackson is shot, strung up on a gourd
tree, stabbed multiple times and has his body dragged behind a truck down the
eponymous road in Cotton County, Georgia. The victim, Elma Jessup, has given
birth to twins, a white girl and a black boy, as a supposed result of the
alleged rape by Genus and her relations with Freddie Jackson, whose grandfather
George Jackson, owns the farm and many more that Juke Jessup, Elma’s father,
sharecrops. After Freddie flees Cotton County, Elma becomes a bit of a
celebrity for her strange twins, referred to as Gemini twins. Along with Elma
is Nan, fours years younger than Elma, and the black housekeeper for the
Jessup’s farm that had her tongue cut out by her mother Jetty when she was a
baby, which forces her to hold onto more than her share of secrets. What
happens after the lynching and what it means for the Wilson’s and the Jessup’s
is a thing of beauty and skill nearly unmatched. It unfolds eloquently, with
secret after secret being revealed, adding another layer to this wonderful work
of art. I noticed a few themes running throughout this book, an obvious one
being fatherhood, both open and secret, which comes to ahead near the end of
the book in a scene that reveals both staggering horrors and hopes, but two
others where the idea of twins, in both the physical and spiritual sense, where
two characters share common goals and desires, most of the time without
realizing it, and the theme of disabilities and how they manifest in a
character’s personality, exemplified by Oliver Rawls, the son of Cotton
County’s doctor and a late addition to the narrative, whose arc is sad yet
hopeful. This is a very good novel, one that is easy to get lost in and feel
things about, and easily one of the best of the year so far.
Rating: 5/5
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