Forgiving Effie Beck

by Karen Casey Fitzjerrell

Forgiving Effie Beck was named to the Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2015 and is the winner of the WILL ROGERS GOLD MEDALLION AWARD and the EPIC Award for Historical Fiction. The book examines complicated issues of a social order that existed in small town America during the Great Depression. The backdrop for the story is a community both paralyzed and comforted by sameness and tradition. It is that attitude which sets the stage for deception and isolates some of the town's beloved citizens.
Mike LeMay, a Federal Writes' Project interviewer arrives in Cooperville, Texas a few days before the town eccentric, Effie Beck, is reported missing. While conduction interviews for his FWP work, Mike learns that the enigmatic, elderly Miss Effie, moved "like brown smoke" on the outer edges of community social circles. What happen to Effie that she'd walk out of her house and disappear? What secrets did she take with her? And, how will Cooperville cope when all the answers are found? "Small wonder that the book already won the Will Rogers Gold Medallion. **Stellar fiction about hard living during the Depression." Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Genres: Book Club

250 pages, Paperback

First published June 27, 2013

About the author

In the 1990s I wrote personal narratives for local Texas newspapers and magazines. Over time I grew bored writing only my perspectives and began to travel Texas roads in search of people and places that intrigued me enough to write about them. Some of those subjects became the frame work for fictional characters in my novels. The landscapes I explored ended up as much a part of the stories as the characters. I always wondered, seeing the vast expanses of uninhabited Texas lands, how a hundred years ago, a lone rider could look out over the nothingness and be curious enough - or brave enough - to ask him or herself what is over yonder and then keep riding to find out. I suppose, deep down I feel a kinship to that kind of mindset.

I was born in Baytown Texas. Back then Baytown was a small company town, a fair place to grow up near the Houston Ship Channel, Trinity Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. My stories are heavily influenced by the fact that I was second oldest of five children born during the 40s and 50s. The adults in my growing up days were boisterous, fun loving and as carefree as the cattle they raised and as rich in spirit as the oil they pumped from the ground.

Today there is no distinction between Baytown and Houston. All small communities in that part of the state have grown until their boundaries butt each other like yeast rolls in an over. Urban sprawl and chaos at its finest.

The hey-day of space exploration found me raising my children in Clear Lake City only blocks from NASA’s back gate. I lived for a time in Oklahoma, and an even shorter period of time in northern Alabama. When I made it back to Texas in the mid 1990s, I swore I’d always keep one foot firmly anchored within Texas state lines no matter where my writing life took me.

I now live in San Antonio, Texas in a quiet place perfectly suited for a semi-recluse committed to projects waiting to be resurrected from long buried computer files.


My philosophy: Persevere and laugh every chance I get.
My fear: That I’ll make a fool of myself
My regret: That I’ve made too many decisions based on my fear.
Favorite music: Anything from Eagles to Mozart
Favorite book - movie: Out of Africa, Cider House Rules
My loves: The seashore, the night sky, wide open landscapes

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forgiving Effie Black is a heartwarming and well-told story. Amidst a panorama of human frailties and human strengths, the author, Karen Casey Fitzjerrell, brings the town of Cooperville, Texas to life. Set during the Great Depression, Mike Lemay, employed as an interviewer by the Federal Writing Project, is sent to Cooperville on assignment. On the surface, the small Texas town runs as smoothly and efficiently as a ticking clock. Underneath, however, the inhabitants are plagued by secrets that are woven tightly into a shroud of “accepting things the way they have always been and always will be.” The story illustrates how humans cling to wavering truths, and how these truths can be cemented by town gossip and individual fears.

[Tammy Hinton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Karen Fitzjerrel has written a book that has a taste of Steel Magnolias and a touch of Fried Green Tomatoes. You experience life in a small town during hard times. I'll read more from this author.

[Heather Couchman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful read

A story of finding truth, healing, and forgiveness. It draws you in and breaks your heart. Wish we knew what happened afterwards....

[Arletta Dawdy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forgiving Effie Beck by Karen Casey Fitzjerrell is a magnificent story of the Great Depression, its impact on a small Texas community and its people. Many books, poems, and articles have been written about the era and, for those impacted by it, the Depression was a major part of their identity and outlook on life. Fitzjerrell conveys exactly that process in developing her characters and the intertwining of their lives.

The Federal Writers’ Project was one of the work relief programs instituted by the government in a desperate attempt to minimize the effects of the 1929 Crash. The goal was to provide work for writers by having them record the oral histories of the nation’s populace. Mike Lemay scarcely knows what he is doing when he arrives in Coopersville and flounders about seeking housing, connections with locals and acceptance of his decision to take the job. Lemay’s self-doubts and anger for leaving his family behind in North Carolina gradually diminishes as he find his way and his stories.

Fitzjerrell has a great talent for drawing her characters through their speech, actions and connections to others. The author fills in backstories, shows the primary characters in the initial pages and makes the reader eager to follow their paths. Throughout exquisite, often poetic, phrases bring the reader into the story: “slow as syrup in snow; wearing raggedy clothes old as Jerusalem; all scabbed over with loneliness; about as useful as a wart on a hog’s tit; and leaving a somber spirit that filled the now dark street like water fills a jar.”

Pure evil is seen in Cora Mae’s laziness, despicable attitude toward her daughter Jodean and the action she takes that nearly kills the young woman. Other deeply flawed characters include the local “sheriff” who carries the title but not its dignity or action. Robert, Jodean’s suitor, presses her to fulfill his needs only to desert her. Early in the book, Effie Beck’s disappearance sets the town folk to search her ranch to no avail. She qualifies as a recluse and source of mystery. Is the sheriff’s wife having an affair with the Works Project Administration bridge builder? Why is Jodean always asked to judge the Pickle Queen Festivities…and who cares? Town gossip sometimes carries the kernels of truth and Mike’s job is to sort out these truths.

[Andrea Downing · Rating 5 out of 5]

REVIEW OF FORGIVING EFFIE BECK

When Mike Lemay travels from North Carolina to Cooperville, Texas, on a Federal Writer's Project during the Great Depression, he has little idea that he is starting a journey that is far more than from one state to another. Commissioned to write life histories of the people in this small town and surrounding area, he quickly becomes involved with his adopted community when old-time resident Effie Beck goes missing. Lodging in the tank house owned by Cora Mae and Jodean Travis, who run the local beauty parlor, Mike gets drawn into the life of Cooperville and a voyage of discovery about himself and the hearts and minds of those around him.
Fitzjerrell, a native Texan, conjures up 1930s small town America in flawless detail. It was a time of Haves and Have-nots, an era when an African American man was not welcome in a white man's church, and when people fed on gossip at the local beauty parlor and lived from one year to the next waiting for the crowning of the local Pickle Queen. In this miniature cosmos, all life is condensed and represented yet Fitzjerrell never lets her characters slip into caricature. Far from it, she has an ability to somehow get into the heads of each and every person in Cooperville and draw them as individuals; we know them, yes, yet they remain fresh and alive.
Forgiving Effie Beck invokes a time and place when life, perhaps, was simpler if not easier. It was an era when it was unusual for anyone to leave the area in which they had been born and bred, and when neighbors knew who was living next door and helped them out—even if they didn't particularly like them. Fitzjerrell is a master of imagery and so all of this is drawn clearly on our mind's eye as we read. Few books have given me such perfect escapism to a different time and place, and such reading pleasure.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Forgiving Effie Beck is Karen Casey Fitzjerrell's second book. Her first book, The Dividing Season, won the EPIC Award for Best Historical Fiction. Effie Beck’s story takes place during the Great Depression and is told through multi-points of view, though mostly the reader will “see” the world through the eyes of Mike Lemay, an interviewer for the Federal Writers' Project.

Effie Beck, an elderly ranch woman is reported missing in the first pages of the book. Mike Lemay is drawn into the search for the woman and discovers she had secrets that no one knew about. Through Mike’s interviews we learn about other people in town, not all of them lovable, and none of them are paper dolls. They come across as real people with real feelings, problems, joys, and secrets. You can tell Fitzjerrell did her research on the time period and place. She seamlessly settles you into the hearts of the town’s people and into times long gone.

Over the course of the book, people accept Mike as one of their own. He discovers some things he doesn't want to know. But most of all, he discovers truths about himself -- and Jodean Travis, the young woman who rents him a room.I'd like to read another book set in this town with these people. This time is long gone, but so very relevant to today's world.

[Mary]

Wonderful book - held my attention. Depression era coming of age wiht lots of twists and turns, although I figured it out about half-way through. That did not diminsh the story, however, because I wanted to see how it played out.
Author is coming to the Library Book CLub on Wednesday, and I can't wait to hear her.
One of the feawthires of the book was the Orphan Train. I read an Orphan Train Book a while back. I'd nefver heard of the concept, and since then have run across several references to the trains.
All in all, I'd read it again in a few years.

[Jenny Hancey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book, that we read for our book group, and were lucky enough to Skype with the author, Karen Casey Fitzjerrell. It was really interesting to hear about all the research that she did for the book, and where some of the characters originated from. Karen has a wonderful knowledge of Texas history, and it shows in her book. A great read!