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Haylow
Fiction. Southern literature. Travis Hemperly is a white southerner who has never been the minority in any room he's ever entered. He has also just joined the history faculty at a historically black college in Atlanta. Off campus, he rekindles a relationship with an old flame, and life looks bright—until he begins to suspect that a family member witnessed a lynching as a child. Complicating matters, his father is now a talk show host for WCTR—Confederate Talk Radio—whose listeners debate whether slavery was wrong. In order to remain in his new position, Travis will have to come to terms with some history outside of his area of specialization—that of his family and that of the South.
294 pages, Paperback
Published September 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 21, 2016
Gray Stewart’s novel Haylow is one of those rare and beautiful books that is so vivid and well-written that you forget you are reading and feel you are beside the characters as they yearn and struggle through the moments in their lives. It’s a wildly ambitious and complex story with a vast cast and landscape. Through perfectly chosen details, deft dialogue, and brilliant moments that move the plot along, Stewart has managed to pull off what very few writers could: He has written a poignant, sometimes hilarious, and unflinching story about race and the burden of history in Atlanta and the South as seen from many perspectives. As heavy as that is, it’s also a pure pleasure to read. This book is a treasure and deserves a very wide audience.
June 9, 2021
It's rare that an important book is also funny and a fast read, but Haylow fits the bill. You'll get action, heartfelt family drama, and plot twists along with an intimate look at racial attitudes in 1990's Atlanta - great choice to read with a friend or two because there's lots to discuss afterward.
Can't wait for Gray Stewart's next book!
Can't wait for Gray Stewart's next book!
December 20, 2019
Haylow, tackles the issue of race in America in a modern satirical manner. It is no accident that the main character, history professor, Travis Hemperly has landed a position at Morehouse College, an African American institution in the heart of Atlanta. Stewart taught for over a decade at Morehouse College, and his familiarity with the school and the city of Atlanta is genuine. More recently, some authors have given voice and history to those who have been otherwise muted by discussing the taboos around the Jim Crow South and the barbarous act of lynching. Travis’s father, Henry Hemperly, tells a young Travis about a lynching he witnessed in Haylow, Georgia. While the narrative centers around discovering the truth and how Travis’s family history fits within the past of the Old South, Haylow is also a powerful and contemporary story that examines the present-day South.
Haylow challenges the reader to consider multiple points-of-view, giving a chapter to a character when needed rather than adhering to any pure rule of structure. The novel is written in present tense and dips into stream of consciousness in a progressive way that isn’t over the top or too heavy. It also leans into the magical realism genre, but the reader could discount these incidents as madness from a delusional character until the very end.
The characters are more like vehicles that represent various extremes of the race card. Three of the most compelling characters are: Travis’s father, Henry Hemperly, a Confederate hate radio host; Travis’s co-worker, Dr. Kalamari, an African American Morehouse College professor on a mission to educate his people about the injustices facing blacks (present and past) as well as their rich world history; and “Uncle Remus” who appears in the book in the form of a homeless black man. The irony is that the voice of hate, via Henry, has the power of speech through a captive audience and following. Dr. Kalamari, a highly educated man, keeps finding himself unable to articulate himself. The very people he wants to reach tend to ignore him. Of course, Uncle Remus is dismissed as a drunken vagrant.
The ending is ambiguous; there were a couple of loose ends that could have been resolved. For example, what happened during the panel discussion at Morehouse? Maybe, it would have been too predictable to give the reader this showdown. Also, vague endings allow the reader to create his or her own ending. Travis doesn’t find the answers he is looking for, no blood on a tree where the black man was executed, or the Klan to explain the atrocity. In a surprise twist, Travis experiences a hallucination—Uncle Remus’s furry friends visit him at Haylow. Why the disconnect from reality? The answer is there are no answers when it comes to race. The hallucination is simply an explanation of the absurdity. Much as we shake our heads and ponder gun violence at schools or at entertainment venues today, Travis cannot get his head around the horror of a lynching his family was privy to. In this way, the ending was quite fitting. Haylow is a novel that should be read by all, but also read more than once. It pushes the dialogue that we all should be having regarding race…whether we want that conversation or not.
Haylow challenges the reader to consider multiple points-of-view, giving a chapter to a character when needed rather than adhering to any pure rule of structure. The novel is written in present tense and dips into stream of consciousness in a progressive way that isn’t over the top or too heavy. It also leans into the magical realism genre, but the reader could discount these incidents as madness from a delusional character until the very end.
The characters are more like vehicles that represent various extremes of the race card. Three of the most compelling characters are: Travis’s father, Henry Hemperly, a Confederate hate radio host; Travis’s co-worker, Dr. Kalamari, an African American Morehouse College professor on a mission to educate his people about the injustices facing blacks (present and past) as well as their rich world history; and “Uncle Remus” who appears in the book in the form of a homeless black man. The irony is that the voice of hate, via Henry, has the power of speech through a captive audience and following. Dr. Kalamari, a highly educated man, keeps finding himself unable to articulate himself. The very people he wants to reach tend to ignore him. Of course, Uncle Remus is dismissed as a drunken vagrant.
The ending is ambiguous; there were a couple of loose ends that could have been resolved. For example, what happened during the panel discussion at Morehouse? Maybe, it would have been too predictable to give the reader this showdown. Also, vague endings allow the reader to create his or her own ending. Travis doesn’t find the answers he is looking for, no blood on a tree where the black man was executed, or the Klan to explain the atrocity. In a surprise twist, Travis experiences a hallucination—Uncle Remus’s furry friends visit him at Haylow. Why the disconnect from reality? The answer is there are no answers when it comes to race. The hallucination is simply an explanation of the absurdity. Much as we shake our heads and ponder gun violence at schools or at entertainment venues today, Travis cannot get his head around the horror of a lynching his family was privy to. In this way, the ending was quite fitting. Haylow is a novel that should be read by all, but also read more than once. It pushes the dialogue that we all should be having regarding race…whether we want that conversation or not.
August 13, 2020
This is a novel not afraid to ask and confront the big questions, and that all within an engaging and absorbing narrative. Fun to read. Fun to meditate on. This book gets the conversations going. (Not to mention giving an insightful breath of Atlanta air, and a compelling look at Georgia lore.)
April 3, 2023
I read Haylow too quickly. The clarity of writing, the fearless storytelling, simply swept me along. So I read almost in one breath. Now I know it needs another read, to explore other layers and angles.
Particularly the magic realism of Uncle Remus and Tar Baby took me right off course on a personal reminiscence, which is of course what fine writing has a habit of doing.
George Orwell said that "writing should be like a windowpane for the reader to look through". Gray Stewart's words deliver their meanings lightly without labor. The reading experience was an effortless pleasure.
He captures both Atlanta and remote rural Georgia and takes the reader right there. He drew me deep into his ambitious range of action and character. His balance of hilarity and horror --- right there on the cover, with that KKK fun at the fair --- what an achievement.
>
Particularly the magic realism of Uncle Remus and Tar Baby took me right off course on a personal reminiscence, which is of course what fine writing has a habit of doing.
George Orwell said that "writing should be like a windowpane for the reader to look through". Gray Stewart's words deliver their meanings lightly without labor. The reading experience was an effortless pleasure.
He captures both Atlanta and remote rural Georgia and takes the reader right there. He drew me deep into his ambitious range of action and character. His balance of hilarity and horror --- right there on the cover, with that KKK fun at the fair --- what an achievement.
>
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews