What do you think?
Rate this book
A Strange and Bitter Fruit
A chilly spring night in rural South Carolina at the tail end of Reconstruction, the murder of innocents. This is the setting for the initial chapter of the historical thriller, A Strange and Bitter Fruit.
Thomas “Tee” Powell, 15, manages to escape as his family is lynched. His father, Zeke, mother Hessie and young sisters Lannie and Effie were hung to teach the blacks of Aiken that voting is not the right of the former slaves, not anymore.
He is angry, but instead of wildly lashing out at the Klansmen that murdered his family, he runs away. After a disastrous detour to Tallahassee, Tee joins the Army and ends up in the West, at a remote Army outpost on the lip of the Black Hills. Here, he grows up and begins to accept responsibility for his life and for the lives of others. After six years, the past, in the form of two of the Klansmen, one now a U.S. Senator on a mission to sign a treaty with the Indians, confronts him.
He had buried his past deep, even changing his last name. Now, he has to confront it head on, starting with the two killers that entered his fort. Trained by the Army to kill, Tee emerges from his exile and takes revenge on those that committed the murder of his family, beginning with the two men. His purpose is now clear, he must take revenge, and he proceeds ruthlessly to do so. But revenge has its own cost, and Tee suffers that price. Many innocent people are killed, and he struggles with the guilt.
A Strange and Bitter Fruit is the story of revenge and its consequences. It is a story of violence and race, a true American story. The novel raises serious questions: Is there a limit on revenge? Is there an act so horrible that any response, no matter how vicious, is just?
A Strange and Bitter Fruit, although it takes place in the 19th Century, confronts the reader with many of the issues of race and violence that we continue to live with today.
Thomas “Tee” Powell, 15, manages to escape as his family is lynched. His father, Zeke, mother Hessie and young sisters Lannie and Effie were hung to teach the blacks of Aiken that voting is not the right of the former slaves, not anymore.
He is angry, but instead of wildly lashing out at the Klansmen that murdered his family, he runs away. After a disastrous detour to Tallahassee, Tee joins the Army and ends up in the West, at a remote Army outpost on the lip of the Black Hills. Here, he grows up and begins to accept responsibility for his life and for the lives of others. After six years, the past, in the form of two of the Klansmen, one now a U.S. Senator on a mission to sign a treaty with the Indians, confronts him.
He had buried his past deep, even changing his last name. Now, he has to confront it head on, starting with the two killers that entered his fort. Trained by the Army to kill, Tee emerges from his exile and takes revenge on those that committed the murder of his family, beginning with the two men. His purpose is now clear, he must take revenge, and he proceeds ruthlessly to do so. But revenge has its own cost, and Tee suffers that price. Many innocent people are killed, and he struggles with the guilt.
A Strange and Bitter Fruit is the story of revenge and its consequences. It is a story of violence and race, a true American story. The novel raises serious questions: Is there a limit on revenge? Is there an act so horrible that any response, no matter how vicious, is just?
A Strange and Bitter Fruit, although it takes place in the 19th Century, confronts the reader with many of the issues of race and violence that we continue to live with today.
327 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 27, 2010
107 people are currently reading
632 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
June 17, 2014
I am amazed that this book was not accepted by a traditional publishing company. The author says in his postscript that they all said, "Who can sympathize with this character called Tee?". It's clear that Barry Davis could, and count me in as well.
This is an amazingly touching and heartfelt depiction of the Reconstruction Era in this country. The title is taken from a poem and subsequent classic song By Billy Holiday that references lynchings that took place in the South against blacks who were never charged or convicted of anything except their race.It boggles one's mind to think that our forefathers could have been so cruel and brutally indifferent to the basic human rights of the black population in post civil war America. While it is difficult to justify cold blooded murder in acts of revenge, if ever there were a case, Davis makes it with Tee Powell his protagonist.
I don't want to give anything away because the story is gruesomely real and totally absorbing from the very beginning. Suffice it to say, the incomprehensible cruelties suffered by Tee take him on an obsessive journey of unbridled revenge. Yes it is at times brutal, but the reader can understand and even sanction Tee's efforts. To simply walk away was not in his nature and he was willing to die, if necessary, for his own sense of justice.
That's all of the plot I will reveal but there are ironies throughout the novel and some unanticipated twists that make this just a great read.
This is an amazingly touching and heartfelt depiction of the Reconstruction Era in this country. The title is taken from a poem and subsequent classic song By Billy Holiday that references lynchings that took place in the South against blacks who were never charged or convicted of anything except their race.It boggles one's mind to think that our forefathers could have been so cruel and brutally indifferent to the basic human rights of the black population in post civil war America. While it is difficult to justify cold blooded murder in acts of revenge, if ever there were a case, Davis makes it with Tee Powell his protagonist.
I don't want to give anything away because the story is gruesomely real and totally absorbing from the very beginning. Suffice it to say, the incomprehensible cruelties suffered by Tee take him on an obsessive journey of unbridled revenge. Yes it is at times brutal, but the reader can understand and even sanction Tee's efforts. To simply walk away was not in his nature and he was willing to die, if necessary, for his own sense of justice.
That's all of the plot I will reveal but there are ironies throughout the novel and some unanticipated twists that make this just a great read.
July 26, 2014
A very powerful book. Thomas "Tee" Powell is a child in post Civil War South Carolina, when his family is lynched because his father is advocating for the black people to vote. Tee vows to avenge the deaths of his family as he runs and escapes from their killers. When he is old enough and strong enough he begins his quest for revenge and the bloodshed he leaves in his path is not minimal. This is a very violent, but seemingly realistic book. At the end, the author writes about how he had to self-publish because no publishers thought the main character, Tee, was not sympathetic enough. I beg to differ. I found him quite compelling. This book had a lot of moral issues in it. It sent my mind spinning. The death and destruction on both sides was horrifying. The book was a compelling read and a story well told.
June 30, 2013
I don't think 'enjoy' is the word I would use after I read this book, but I am glad I read it. It was a moving story with some pretty graphic descriptions of how minorities, especially blacks, were treated after the US Civil War. Tee continuously faces a moral choice - revenge or move forward in peace. His decisions are the focus of the novel.
On a publishing note, the paragraph spacing on the Kindle version I read was not too good. Paragraphs with different topics ran into each other and several times I had to stop and re-read to keep my mind straight.
On a publishing note, the paragraph spacing on the Kindle version I read was not too good. Paragraphs with different topics ran into each other and several times I had to stop and re-read to keep my mind straight.
May 17, 2014
Why no publisher would take this book is beyond me. Stories about the oppression of the blacks abound, and most of the ones I've read related both their struggles and successes through the years. This one here is quite different. With a very heavy theme, the author finished the father's story quite tragically, then ended the novel with a prelude to the next, with the son, most probably as the central character.
Though progress has been made on the integration of the races, nothing promising as far as the characters' morals were concerned, was in the horizon. The novel is full of anger, hate, violence, revenge. Yet, though faintly hidden between the pages, there was still compassion in the story, something about family, friendship, love.
The author mentioned that the reason why no publisher would take this story was because the main character is not sympathetic. I beg to disagree. Even with too much murdered blood on his hands, Tee was still a person with a conscience. For that alone, he deserved sympathy.
Though progress has been made on the integration of the races, nothing promising as far as the characters' morals were concerned, was in the horizon. The novel is full of anger, hate, violence, revenge. Yet, though faintly hidden between the pages, there was still compassion in the story, something about family, friendship, love.
The author mentioned that the reason why no publisher would take this story was because the main character is not sympathetic. I beg to disagree. Even with too much murdered blood on his hands, Tee was still a person with a conscience. For that alone, he deserved sympathy.
July 10, 2018
I know that it's only January, but I've a feeling that this may be one of the best books that I'll read in 2014. I've never read any books by, or even heard of Barry Davis until I ran across this one on some unremembered website. It sounded good, and it was. This tells the story of Tee (Thomas) Powell, who narrowly escaped the lynching that killed his mother, father, and two sisters, one of them only 3 years old at the time. He runs the gamut from hatred, revenge, guilt, and finally the end of his story, which I won't give away. Davis explains in his notes that he could not find a publisher because they didn't think that readers would find Tee to be a sympathetic character. They were wrong.
August 18, 2013
This was such a well written book. The characters were well developed, the plot was rich, and it took me through all the emotions on the spectrum! I could not believe what I read in the Author's Notes, that publishers would not accept this manuscript because they did not feel that we would feel sympathy for the main character. I read night and day and felt so much sympathy for Tee Powell.
The story begins with a lynching in South Carolina. A young boy escapes and then plans revenge on the men who comitted the crime. That's all I will tell you. Read the book!
The story begins with a lynching in South Carolina. A young boy escapes and then plans revenge on the men who comitted the crime. That's all I will tell you. Read the book!
August 31, 2013
This is not a book that I would normally pick up to read due to the time setting (1880s). Along with the language. However, after reading the description via email for free kindle books, I decided to try it. I am glad that I did.
This book catches you off the bat. It opens with the death of a boy's family. By the usual southern tactic (trashy) hanging of a black family. The boy, name Tee, was a very memorable character. Initially his mission was to retaliate against the men that killed his family. As time passes, the retaliation became a retaliation against Tee. At what point does the retaliation stop? Tee was successful in retaliation of a main point man but, still, at what point does it end? It ended for Tee when he met Sara and when they had a family.
Unfortunately the men that hung Tee's family still was out to get him and unfortunately, Tee's daughter was caught in the crossfire. Does Tee now begin to retaliate again?!? Tee's decision was clear and he said and stuck to "no more killing". Tee's son Robert witnessed the killing of his sister Harriet and felt guilt. Robert picked up the retaliation theory after Robert became a man, which was not a good outcome.
In the end, one asks who really win's in the game of retaliation? No one really does.
The author Davis puts forth his thoughts on the storyline of the book. Davis states that his book was not picked up by a big named publisher because, according to them, Tee would not have been memorable. I completely disagree. Tee's character is what kept me connected to the book. A man that faced uncertainty throughout his life after the death of his entire family. Him being able to triumph in a successful life and trying to do "right" only to die a senseless death in the end. This book leaves you with a serious thought process...when does the death spree end?
The author also makes a point at the end of the book, in author notes, about terrorism. What is the difference between what Osama Bin Laden did on 9-11 to what the white man did to the Native Americans as well as the African Americans? Did the white man not terrorize Native Americans and African Americans back in the day? If not by an airplane into a building but by psychological abuse by being made to feel inferior?! I whole heartily agree and always did and this is coming from a white female. We, as humans, will be our own demise in this world. White on black, black on black, Bin Laden on America, America on Iraq, Hitler on Jews, Crips vs Bloods, etc-the list goes on and on and on...it is a never ending cycle of death. Unfortunate but truthfully...brutal death is a sad outcome in many lives. It is unnecessary but will probably always be a continued cycle.
This book catches you off the bat. It opens with the death of a boy's family. By the usual southern tactic (trashy) hanging of a black family. The boy, name Tee, was a very memorable character. Initially his mission was to retaliate against the men that killed his family. As time passes, the retaliation became a retaliation against Tee. At what point does the retaliation stop? Tee was successful in retaliation of a main point man but, still, at what point does it end? It ended for Tee when he met Sara and when they had a family.
Unfortunately the men that hung Tee's family still was out to get him and unfortunately, Tee's daughter was caught in the crossfire. Does Tee now begin to retaliate again?!? Tee's decision was clear and he said and stuck to "no more killing". Tee's son Robert witnessed the killing of his sister Harriet and felt guilt. Robert picked up the retaliation theory after Robert became a man, which was not a good outcome.
In the end, one asks who really win's in the game of retaliation? No one really does.
The author Davis puts forth his thoughts on the storyline of the book. Davis states that his book was not picked up by a big named publisher because, according to them, Tee would not have been memorable. I completely disagree. Tee's character is what kept me connected to the book. A man that faced uncertainty throughout his life after the death of his entire family. Him being able to triumph in a successful life and trying to do "right" only to die a senseless death in the end. This book leaves you with a serious thought process...when does the death spree end?
The author also makes a point at the end of the book, in author notes, about terrorism. What is the difference between what Osama Bin Laden did on 9-11 to what the white man did to the Native Americans as well as the African Americans? Did the white man not terrorize Native Americans and African Americans back in the day? If not by an airplane into a building but by psychological abuse by being made to feel inferior?! I whole heartily agree and always did and this is coming from a white female. We, as humans, will be our own demise in this world. White on black, black on black, Bin Laden on America, America on Iraq, Hitler on Jews, Crips vs Bloods, etc-the list goes on and on and on...it is a never ending cycle of death. Unfortunate but truthfully...brutal death is a sad outcome in many lives. It is unnecessary but will probably always be a continued cycle.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 20, 2013
This is a true story about Thomas 'Tee' Powell in South Carolina. A small Negro boy saw his whole family lynched by the KKK. When he grew up he chased down all KKK members that was involved to get revenge and consequences by finding and killing them. This is a story of violence and race. Tee goes to all lengths to kill these men. He get married has two children and a loving wife but during one of the fights his own little girl gets killed and he then decides the battle is over no more killings. Tee and his wife raised their son while Tee works in a coal mine. Years later after his son is grown his son decides he should finish what his dad started. You must read the book to find out how it ends. This is a very good story, it was a little hard for me to get into at first but then the story was getting better and better and was hard to put down. A great book I enjoyed it. A story you will never forget.
June 14, 2018
Tremendous
I couldn't put this down! This should be a Netflix original series. My heart broke for Tee and his family. What horrible pain to live through., both physically and mentally. I look forward to reading more by this talented author. Thank you BCD!
I couldn't put this down! This should be a Netflix original series. My heart broke for Tee and his family. What horrible pain to live through., both physically and mentally. I look forward to reading more by this talented author. Thank you BCD!
August 13, 2013
This story took place back in slavery days or at the end of slavery days anyway, it was a great read. It covered areas of lynching, black men in the army, the horrible way the Indians were treated, some awful lies that finally came to the forefront and how everyone that looked white weren't always white.
I really enjoyed the love story even though the end was not what I expected. This was an awesome book and will reread many times.
I really enjoyed the love story even though the end was not what I expected. This was an awesome book and will reread many times.
August 24, 2013
Revenge. Most humans have the desire to avenge the wrongs committed by evil upon us or our loved ones. The question is, does it help us to feel better? Does it cure our hurt? Does it accomplish anything? Or does it simply compound the evil? Tee struggles with these questions in this beautifully written, heart wrenching book.
I wish I could give this 4 1/2 stars. Not quite a 5 star book for me, but very close.
I wish I could give this 4 1/2 stars. Not quite a 5 star book for me, but very close.
November 15, 2013
I have about 30% of this book left to read and this far I love it! I am really driven to see how it ends both from the stand point of the law and from how Tee, comes to terms with his life and which direction he is headed in or if he even lives to the end of the book!
Thus far I give this 4 stars and I will come back when I have completed my reading. How cool would this be as a movie!?
I'll be checking back!
Thus far I give this 4 stars and I will come back when I have completed my reading. How cool would this be as a movie!?
I'll be checking back!
April 8, 2014
This was an amazing book. I kept trying to visualize the main character, Tee Powell and low and behold, after I finished reading the book, a security guard at my building fit Tee Powell's profile to a T. It's like the author combined elements of modern day heroes and their abilities with a story of loss and revenge and redemption. Excellent read.
March 25, 2014
Captivating
Captivating
I loved this book. couldn't wait to get back to it. the story was captivating. can't wait to read more of your books. thank you for writing and giving me all these emotions and visuals.
Captivating
I loved this book. couldn't wait to get back to it. the story was captivating. can't wait to read more of your books. thank you for writing and giving me all these emotions and visuals.
May 7, 2014
This is a great story that covers many settings and characters. Revenge or justice are the main theme. Which one of these depends on the readers' philosophies. Recommended to all mature readers of any race.
July 20, 2020
The vengeance genre is popular in American culture (and perhaps others as well). Such themes of the sole surviving member of a family seeking revenge is a common plot line. This book uses that theme effectively as Tee, a teen in the post Civil War south, escapes a brutal group of men who hang his entire family, including his young siblings. Unlike the typical white character is such tales, Tee can run but really can't hide how he stands out in society for he's black. The brutal group of men are Klansmen. The quest for revenge takes Tee to the American West and then to other parts of the country. I found this book riveting and found it more compelling than any movie or tv show I'm watching at this time. I couldn't wait to see what would happen because this is not a formula revenge plot. I'd love to see this as a movie. My rating is 5 stars. My only nit is the author may not be very familiar with horses. The end of a horse's head where the nostrils and mouth is is called a muzzle and not a snout. However, I understood what was meant.
January 3, 2019
Must read!!!!!!!
I loved this book. The main character Tee had me angry with him times and other times I'm in his corner. From the title you know what the book is about but racism is still alive. The short story about Abby who was white and turned black made me think white's really need to walk in our shoes and own their participation in slavery. We are so quick to acknowledge the Holocaust which was devastating but so was SLAVERY!!!!
I loved this book. The main character Tee had me angry with him times and other times I'm in his corner. From the title you know what the book is about but racism is still alive. The short story about Abby who was white and turned black made me think white's really need to walk in our shoes and own their participation in slavery. We are so quick to acknowledge the Holocaust which was devastating but so was SLAVERY!!!!
May 14, 2014
I checked this book out because the author was featured on the Amazon Kindle page as being self-published. He came across as a 'guy with a dream' who was trying to find his own way to make it happen, and I like to support people like that. I so wanted this book to be good, but it fell short of the mark on several counts, I'm sad to say.
It's not that the story put me off. (In the afterward, he claims that publishers were hesitant to take the book because of an 'unlikable protagonist.') Although it's difficult to be reminded about the savage and unspeakably cruel way minorities were treated during the early days of this country- mainly because it forces us to really look at our own actions today and question if those attitudes, maybe even practices, still exist- I think it's important to keep that history alive, rather than sweep it under the rug in an attempt to make ourselves feel better. How can we learn from our past mistakes if we don't admit them? I have no doubt that some of what is written actually occurred, but the deck is stacked a bit too much. Every single white character save one (who appears for a brief two or three paragraphs) is bone-chillingly evil, or doltishly incompetent, or a mixture of the two. A detective from the Pinkerton Agency, a real organization which was responsible for the protection of Abraham Lincoln, is so corrupt and racist that he not only agrees to track down and kill the entire family of a black man - women and children included- but he allows himself to be tortured and maimed before he gives up his precious white client.
The thing is: with stories that have a high level of drama and pain, sometimes a subtle touch is appreciated. The audience is (hopefully) already on the side of a young, black slave in South Carolina who witnesses his entire family lynched because his father was advocating voting rights for all. We don't need a sledgehammer hitting us over the head for 300 more pages about how terrible the situation was. In the afterward he talks about what inspired him to tell this story- a report on 'post-racial America' after Obama was elected that made him question how far we truly have come, and what minorities went through in the years after the Civil War to find a place in this 'union'- so I get that it was deeply personal for him. I just wish he had found a good editor, or good friend, who would have pushed him to tell this story in a more complex and unexpected way, rather than hundreds of pages of the same bloodshed and violence. After so much, I began to feel inured to it because nothing was really changing.
A secondary benefit from a good editor would have been the actual telling of the story. I hate to say it, but Davis is, in my opinion, a very amateurish writer. This is how he introduces a character:
"Folmar was not a big man nor was he small. Looking at him, the first thing you would notice was how he dressed: impeccably neat and all in black. People have mistaken him for a preacher. This mistake usually lasted until they got up close enough to him. One look into his clear blue eyes, hard and without a soul or a conscious, dissuaded any thought of a man of God."
Setting aside the slip in tense, or using 'conscious' for 'conscience', this paragraph is indicative of his style: short choppy sentences that feel cobbled together. Later this sentence stood out for me:
"Standing there, tending two pots of something cooking on his stove, stood Sara."
Essentially: Standing there stood Sara. OK.
I wish I could let slips like that go (all writers make errors in a quick first draft), but unfortunately, there are too many of them peppered throughout the book. Or sometimes it's a line like:
"She kissed him with a passion she did not dare let herself show."
I'm not even sure what that means.
Finally, the novel takes place over the span of 20 years or so, and yet the characters all behave as if everything is urgent. There are certainly great stories of people waiting decades for revenge, but I simply couldn't buy that these rich, powerful white men pay the greatest detective agency in the nation stacks of money to track down this guy, and yet his wife makes repeated visits over the course of several years to the white woman who told everyone about his escape and both of their roles in it. Not to mention how more than once, malicious white men have the drop on the target- all they have to do is shoot!- and for some inexplicable reason they either let him walk away with vague threats of 'getting him later' or they put down their guns because they want to kill him with their bare hands. Not that I want the poor guy to simply get gunned down on page 50, but there has to be a better way to get him out of danger.
Following the novel there was an excerpt of a short story about a (surprisingly!) racist white woman in 'post-racial America' who magically gets transformed into a black woman. Even though the writing is better than "A Strange and Bitter Fruit", I had to stop reading after a few pages. I'm not suggesting Davis give up writing altogether, but I think a wise editor or time spent in a writing course or structured program would greatly benefit him. I like to see people following their dreams and I wish him nothing but success, but I can't rate the book on how much I *want* him to succeed.
It's not that the story put me off. (In the afterward, he claims that publishers were hesitant to take the book because of an 'unlikable protagonist.') Although it's difficult to be reminded about the savage and unspeakably cruel way minorities were treated during the early days of this country- mainly because it forces us to really look at our own actions today and question if those attitudes, maybe even practices, still exist- I think it's important to keep that history alive, rather than sweep it under the rug in an attempt to make ourselves feel better. How can we learn from our past mistakes if we don't admit them? I have no doubt that some of what is written actually occurred, but the deck is stacked a bit too much. Every single white character save one (who appears for a brief two or three paragraphs) is bone-chillingly evil, or doltishly incompetent, or a mixture of the two. A detective from the Pinkerton Agency, a real organization which was responsible for the protection of Abraham Lincoln, is so corrupt and racist that he not only agrees to track down and kill the entire family of a black man - women and children included- but he allows himself to be tortured and maimed before he gives up his precious white client.
The thing is: with stories that have a high level of drama and pain, sometimes a subtle touch is appreciated. The audience is (hopefully) already on the side of a young, black slave in South Carolina who witnesses his entire family lynched because his father was advocating voting rights for all. We don't need a sledgehammer hitting us over the head for 300 more pages about how terrible the situation was. In the afterward he talks about what inspired him to tell this story- a report on 'post-racial America' after Obama was elected that made him question how far we truly have come, and what minorities went through in the years after the Civil War to find a place in this 'union'- so I get that it was deeply personal for him. I just wish he had found a good editor, or good friend, who would have pushed him to tell this story in a more complex and unexpected way, rather than hundreds of pages of the same bloodshed and violence. After so much, I began to feel inured to it because nothing was really changing.
A secondary benefit from a good editor would have been the actual telling of the story. I hate to say it, but Davis is, in my opinion, a very amateurish writer. This is how he introduces a character:
"Folmar was not a big man nor was he small. Looking at him, the first thing you would notice was how he dressed: impeccably neat and all in black. People have mistaken him for a preacher. This mistake usually lasted until they got up close enough to him. One look into his clear blue eyes, hard and without a soul or a conscious, dissuaded any thought of a man of God."
Setting aside the slip in tense, or using 'conscious' for 'conscience', this paragraph is indicative of his style: short choppy sentences that feel cobbled together. Later this sentence stood out for me:
"Standing there, tending two pots of something cooking on his stove, stood Sara."
Essentially: Standing there stood Sara. OK.
I wish I could let slips like that go (all writers make errors in a quick first draft), but unfortunately, there are too many of them peppered throughout the book. Or sometimes it's a line like:
"She kissed him with a passion she did not dare let herself show."
I'm not even sure what that means.
Finally, the novel takes place over the span of 20 years or so, and yet the characters all behave as if everything is urgent. There are certainly great stories of people waiting decades for revenge, but I simply couldn't buy that these rich, powerful white men pay the greatest detective agency in the nation stacks of money to track down this guy, and yet his wife makes repeated visits over the course of several years to the white woman who told everyone about his escape and both of their roles in it. Not to mention how more than once, malicious white men have the drop on the target- all they have to do is shoot!- and for some inexplicable reason they either let him walk away with vague threats of 'getting him later' or they put down their guns because they want to kill him with their bare hands. Not that I want the poor guy to simply get gunned down on page 50, but there has to be a better way to get him out of danger.
Following the novel there was an excerpt of a short story about a (surprisingly!) racist white woman in 'post-racial America' who magically gets transformed into a black woman. Even though the writing is better than "A Strange and Bitter Fruit", I had to stop reading after a few pages. I'm not suggesting Davis give up writing altogether, but I think a wise editor or time spent in a writing course or structured program would greatly benefit him. I like to see people following their dreams and I wish him nothing but success, but I can't rate the book on how much I *want* him to succeed.
March 6, 2020
Compelling and well written story which kept my interest and created a dichotomy of choices. Empathy was plentiful.
Compelling and well written story which kept my interest and created dichotomy of choices. Empathy was plentiful and caused one to think.
Compelling and well written story which kept my interest and created dichotomy of choices. Empathy was plentiful and caused one to think.
November 24, 2020
Great book ! History is repeating itself
Book was very interesting. It may have been about slavery down south but it sure does hit home with what’s going on in our world today.
It has a lot of violence and it’s very descriptive but it didn’t stop me fro reading the entire book.
Book was very interesting. It may have been about slavery down south but it sure does hit home with what’s going on in our world today.
It has a lot of violence and it’s very descriptive but it didn’t stop me fro reading the entire book.
September 3, 2017
Good book
You people should just read this book yourselves and write your own review on this novel yourself and I really enjoyed reading this book very much so. Shelley MA
You people should just read this book yourselves and write your own review on this novel yourself and I really enjoyed reading this book very much so. Shelley MA
August 28, 2020
'k'khih
February 23, 2015
Having read half a dozen slave narratives, and having forced myself to appreciate the incredible, heart-rending and often unimaginable stories of survival at the expense of my lingering dissatisfaction at reading of slave owners who never seem to get their comeuppance, I had very high hopes for this book. And it delivered...somewhat.
Don't get me wrong, the book is good; no, it was great; no, it really was just good...tongue-in-cheekiness aside, this sort of back and forth really was how I felt while reading "A Strange and Bitter Fruit." Set in America's Reconstruction period, Thomas "Tee" Powell escapes the lynching of his entire immediate family at the age of 15 and embarks on a life that will inevitably lead back to the scene of the crime and to a revenge long in coming. No spoiler alert necessary, you know this very early in the book.
Through the journey, Tee becomes quite the anti-hero; the lines of right and wrong are blurred, and it seems that almost everyone he comes across, good or bad, has an affect on whom he becomes. The result is a character that you root for but whose decisions also pisses you off on a level that is hard to reconcile. At times I almost felt as if I was yelling at the telly after some plot twist that I vehemently disagreed with.
Oddly, this messiness did serve to draw me in on an emotional level. And even in a basic prose, the settings in which the book takes place seem more vivid than they should. I'd love to read a review by someone with the historical chops to speak to the authenticity of those settings.
Don't get me wrong, the book is good; no, it was great; no, it really was just good...tongue-in-cheekiness aside, this sort of back and forth really was how I felt while reading "A Strange and Bitter Fruit." Set in America's Reconstruction period, Thomas "Tee" Powell escapes the lynching of his entire immediate family at the age of 15 and embarks on a life that will inevitably lead back to the scene of the crime and to a revenge long in coming. No spoiler alert necessary, you know this very early in the book.
Through the journey, Tee becomes quite the anti-hero; the lines of right and wrong are blurred, and it seems that almost everyone he comes across, good or bad, has an affect on whom he becomes. The result is a character that you root for but whose decisions also pisses you off on a level that is hard to reconcile. At times I almost felt as if I was yelling at the telly after some plot twist that I vehemently disagreed with.
Oddly, this messiness did serve to draw me in on an emotional level. And even in a basic prose, the settings in which the book takes place seem more vivid than they should. I'd love to read a review by someone with the historical chops to speak to the authenticity of those settings.
Want to read
February 15, 2016332p Thomas 1CTee 1D Powell, 15, manages to escape as his family is lynched. His father, Zeke, mother Hessie and young sisters Lannie and Effie were hung to teach the blacks of Aiken that voting is not the right of the former slaves, not anymore.
He is angry, but instead of wildly lashing out at the Klansmen that murdered his family, he runs away. After a disastrous detour to Tallahassee, Tee joins the Army and ends up in the West, at a remote Army outpost on the lip of the Black Hills. Here, he grows up and begins to accept responsibility for his life and for the lives of others. After six years, the past, in the form of two of the Klansmen, one now a U.S. Senator on a mission to sign a treaty with the Indians, confronts him.
He had buried his past deep, even changing his last name. Now, he has to confront it head on, starting with the two killers that entered his fort. Trained by the Army to kill, Tee emerges from his exile and takes revenge on those that committed the murder of his family, beginning with the two men. His purpose is now clear, he must take revenge, and he proceeds ruthlessly to do so. But revenge has its own cost, and Tee suffers that price. Many innocent people are killed, and he struggles with the guilt.
He is angry, but instead of wildly lashing out at the Klansmen that murdered his family, he runs away. After a disastrous detour to Tallahassee, Tee joins the Army and ends up in the West, at a remote Army outpost on the lip of the Black Hills. Here, he grows up and begins to accept responsibility for his life and for the lives of others. After six years, the past, in the form of two of the Klansmen, one now a U.S. Senator on a mission to sign a treaty with the Indians, confronts him.
He had buried his past deep, even changing his last name. Now, he has to confront it head on, starting with the two killers that entered his fort. Trained by the Army to kill, Tee emerges from his exile and takes revenge on those that committed the murder of his family, beginning with the two men. His purpose is now clear, he must take revenge, and he proceeds ruthlessly to do so. But revenge has its own cost, and Tee suffers that price. Many innocent people are killed, and he struggles with the guilt.
September 13, 2014
Four Stars
I really enjoyed this book. The author took a controversial storyline – the young sole survivor of a family lynched for the father’s desire to vote avenges their murders – and created a tome with a careful plot and storyline. Difficult situations of violence, lack of remorse, disdain and prejudice are deftly handled.
The characters – black, white, male, female – were relatable and a reflection of the US at that time.
Two issues (which I have seen in both self published and increasingly in books published by traditional publishers) are the need for tighter editing and typos.
I give this book a solid four and will recommend it.
I really enjoyed this book. The author took a controversial storyline – the young sole survivor of a family lynched for the father’s desire to vote avenges their murders – and created a tome with a careful plot and storyline. Difficult situations of violence, lack of remorse, disdain and prejudice are deftly handled.
The characters – black, white, male, female – were relatable and a reflection of the US at that time.
Two issues (which I have seen in both self published and increasingly in books published by traditional publishers) are the need for tighter editing and typos.
I give this book a solid four and will recommend it.
July 1, 2013
3 1/2 stars really. 4 stars for the story, 3 stars for the style/editing. Good historical fiction that I enjoyed reading, but I was distracted and irritated by the way the character perspective changed unexpectedly within the chapters. Multiple paragraphs would be from Tee's perspective, but then suddenly the next paragraph would be from Billy's (or another character's) perspective. I could follow it, but it was irritating. Without that particular style/quirk, this book would have been 4 stars for me.
September 23, 2013
O.K., it's not that The story wasn't good, it's that I didn't like the story itself. You want to be able to cheer for the victim in their accomplishments in this type of story. Tee was too hateful to cheer for, too bitter. While that attitude may be more realistic for this scenario, it doesn't set him apart as anything special, certainly not someone worth writing a book about. I would have preferred to see Tee seek his revenge with a highly successful life despite the odds...that, would be worth writing about. This, is a Sylvester Stalone movie.
March 17, 2016
The plot is good. The author said he couldn't get it published, so he self-published, because the publishers said his main character as a sympathetic character. They were wrong. It was easy to side with Tee. It was easy to see his perspective. It does have some grammatical, punctuation, and verb tense mistakes (which most likely would have been taken care of had the publishers "liked" the book) but the plot is sound. I found myself rooting for Tee and hoping (even though I could see it coming) that he would live "happily ever after".
August 17, 2014
Almost a paged-turner. I was anxious to see how T's story was going to end. This was in part a difficult book to read-because of the violence. But, I can imagine that somewhere in this country's history, this scenario has played out.
It's hard to call T a good-guy, but I was rooting for him. Except for the truly innocent (his daughter and other by-standers)
most got what they deserved, including him.
It's hard to call T a good-guy, but I was rooting for him. Except for the truly innocent (his daughter and other by-standers)
most got what they deserved, including him.
March 25, 2015
A Strange and Bitter Fruit is a powerful and moving story of 15 year old Tee Powell who manages to escape while his family is being lynched. It follows his life journey which includes a stint in the army as well as his revenge on those who murdered his family. This has been one of my favorite books this month. My other favorite book was The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi. Yay Bookbub and its free books!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews