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The Vain Conversation
Inspired by true events, The Vain Conversation reflects on the 1946 lynching of two black couples in Georgia from the perspectives of three characters—Bertrand Johnson, one of the victims; Noland Jacks, a presumed perpetrator; and Lonnie Henson, a witness to the murders as a ten-year-old boy. Lonnie’s inexplicable feelings of culpability drive him in a search for meaning that takes him around the world, and ultimately back to Georgia, where he must confront Jacks and his own demons, with the hopes that doing so will free him from the grip of the past.
In The Vain Conversation, Anthony Grooms seeks to advance the national dialogue on race relations. With complexity, satire, and sometimes levity, he explores what it means to redeem, as well as to be redeemed, on the issues of America’s race violence and speaks to the broader issues of oppression and violence everywhere.
In The Vain Conversation, Anthony Grooms seeks to advance the national dialogue on race relations. With complexity, satire, and sometimes levity, he explores what it means to redeem, as well as to be redeemed, on the issues of America’s race violence and speaks to the broader issues of oppression and violence everywhere.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2018
13 people are currently reading
305 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Grooms
18 books35 followersAnthony Grooms grew up in rural Virginia. His education at the College of William and Mary and George Mason University led him to a teaching career in Georgia, where since 1995, he has taught creative writing and literature at Kennesaw State University, and directs its M. A. in Professional Writing Program. He is the author of Ice Poems, Trouble No More: Stories and Bombingham, a novel. His stories and poems have been published in Callaloo, African American Review, Crab Orchard Review, and other literary journals and anthologies. Writing in MELUS, a critical journal of multi-ethnic literature, Professor Diptiranjan Pattanaik said that Trouble No More demonstrates “the insider’s profound knowledge of the history and struggles of African Americans, while consistently managing to circumscribe a breadth of understanding with a tender story-telling art.” Reviewing Bombingham for the Washington Post, critic Jabari Asim wrote, "In its insistence that 'the world is a tumultuous place and every soul in it suffers,' this powerful, resonant novel offers no consolations. Grooms offers consolation, however, in allowing us to be present at the emergence of a brave and promising talent.” Grooms is a Fulbright Fellow, a Yaddo Fellow, a Hurston-Wright Foundation Legacy Award finalist, an Arts Administration Fellow from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the recipient of two Lillian Smith Awards from the Southern Regional Council. Both Trouble No More and Bombingham were selected as All Georgia Reads books. Adopted for study in colleges, Bombingham was the 2013 common book selection for Washington, D. C. The Vain Conversation, a novel, is scheduled to be published by Story River Books (USC Press) in fall 2017. Currently, Grooms is finishing novels about Black Americans in Sweden and school desegregation in Birmingham, Alabama.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
November 28, 2017
This book had such an impact on me that I can barely think of the words that I want to use to describe it. I think it needs to be read by middle school and high school children and their parents so that they can have an open dialogue in their homes about race. Even though the book is set mainly in 1946, it still resonates in today's racial problems in this country.
Here is the synopsis: Inspired by true events, The Vain Conversation reflects on the 1946 lynching of two black couples in Georgia from the perspectives of three characters--Bertrand Johnson, one of the victims; Noland Jacks, a presumed perpetrator; and Lonnie Henson, a witness to the murders as a ten-year-old boy. Lonnie's inexplicable feelings of culpability drive him in a search for meaning that takes him around the world, and ultimately back to Georgia, where he must confront Jacks and his own demons, with the hopes that doing so will free him from the grip of the past.
The perspectives of each of the three main characters tells the same story but it is different based on their belief system. Betrand had just come back from WWII where he helped liberate a concentration camp and fought to keep America free. He felt that once the war was over he would be respected as a black man in American. Jacks, a farm owner who employed many black workers, was a victim of the belief system of Georgia at this time. And Lonnie, a 10 year old boy, who felt that Betrand was his friend and mentor, who never realized that hatred like this really existed, was set on a path of wandering the world looking for what would make his life right again because of what he witnessed.
The cruelty and the hatred in this book are difficult to read but need to be read and understood - not just in the perspective of 1946 and also for the understanding of racial inequality that exists in 2017. This is a must read book!
Thanks to Story River Books for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.
Here is the synopsis: Inspired by true events, The Vain Conversation reflects on the 1946 lynching of two black couples in Georgia from the perspectives of three characters--Bertrand Johnson, one of the victims; Noland Jacks, a presumed perpetrator; and Lonnie Henson, a witness to the murders as a ten-year-old boy. Lonnie's inexplicable feelings of culpability drive him in a search for meaning that takes him around the world, and ultimately back to Georgia, where he must confront Jacks and his own demons, with the hopes that doing so will free him from the grip of the past.
The perspectives of each of the three main characters tells the same story but it is different based on their belief system. Betrand had just come back from WWII where he helped liberate a concentration camp and fought to keep America free. He felt that once the war was over he would be respected as a black man in American. Jacks, a farm owner who employed many black workers, was a victim of the belief system of Georgia at this time. And Lonnie, a 10 year old boy, who felt that Betrand was his friend and mentor, who never realized that hatred like this really existed, was set on a path of wandering the world looking for what would make his life right again because of what he witnessed.
The cruelty and the hatred in this book are difficult to read but need to be read and understood - not just in the perspective of 1946 and also for the understanding of racial inequality that exists in 2017. This is a must read book!
Thanks to Story River Books for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.
August 14, 2019
This dark and engaging novel grabbed me from the first page and never let go. The story begins innocently--a boy out picking blackberries--but by the second page the scene turns dark and deadly. Anthony Grooms does a magnificent job of getting into the mind of the boy, and ultimately detailing the lives of the four victims whose murders he witnessed. The story is based on the "Moore's Ford lynchings," a horrific event of 1946, influenced by the return of black soldiers after WWII. Grooms does a particularly fine job with the physical setting, drawing the reader into deep forests, farmland, and eventually into a poor neighborhood of Atlanta. He brings the story full-circle on the last page of the book with an ending I felt was both disturbing and inevitable.
As depicted in the foreword by Clarence Major, The Vain Conversation is an imagined rendering of a true story; Grooms' novel rightfully takes its place among other great nonfiction novels such as In Cold Blood, Native Son, and Schindler's List.
This book deserves a wide audience well outside the deep South of its setting.
As depicted in the foreword by Clarence Major, The Vain Conversation is an imagined rendering of a true story; Grooms' novel rightfully takes its place among other great nonfiction novels such as In Cold Blood, Native Son, and Schindler's List.
This book deserves a wide audience well outside the deep South of its setting.
April 8, 2018
The last chapter of this book is the most perfect thing I've read in awhile, which is saying something. It captures the role of race in the South as well as anything I've ever read. I feel that, as a white woman born in upstate South Carolina 50 years ago, I'm just beginning even to ask the right questions about race. I'm not sure I will ever get to the answers, but Grooms' novel provides rich context for the essential work of being better human beings in relationship with each other. It is easier to think of race relations as a struggle between good people and bad people. But, as Grooms tells the story, it is an entire worldview that is at fault, a worldview as old as the Georgia mud. Progress is so much more difficult than just converting or erasing the "bad people."
The particulars of the book and Grooms' beautiful writing are compelling, but it's the larger message that makes it a must-read. I confess that I tripped over some typographical glitches that surprised me, coming from USC Press. I hope they'll re-release it in paperback after another edit. Nevertheless, it has definitely earned a spot on the "Staff Picks" shelf.
The particulars of the book and Grooms' beautiful writing are compelling, but it's the larger message that makes it a must-read. I confess that I tripped over some typographical glitches that surprised me, coming from USC Press. I hope they'll re-release it in paperback after another edit. Nevertheless, it has definitely earned a spot on the "Staff Picks" shelf.
June 9, 2018
Note: I received a complimentary copy of this book from publisher University of South Carolina Press. My full review is at http://thebookstop.wordpress.com. This was a very intense read, and a thoughtful one. Grooms takes us into the minds of three characters who are involved in a mass lynching in Georgia in 1946 (one based on actual events). One character is Lonnie, a young white boy who sees the brutal murder of four people, one of them a close family friend. Another character is Noland Jacks, a wealthy older white man. And the third is Bertrand, one of the four African-Americans who are murdered.
Chronologically, the book begins with Wayne (Lonnie’s father) coming home from World War II. Wayne, a white man, strikes up a friendship with fellow veteran Bertrand. Their perception of the world has the changed, from their travels, to the horrors they’ve seen, to the bonds they shared. Wayne's wife Aileen warns him that a black man and a white man can’t be friends in Talmaedge County. Their son Lonnie tries to understand the conflicting views of his parents, while he comes to see Bernard as a role model and friend.
This book forces you to look head-on at something you really don’t want to know about. Or, you think you know but you don’t, because you can’t. What this book made me realize, that I didn’t quite understand before, is the terror that African-Americans lived with constantly. The characters in this book live in constant fear of saying the wrong thing, or smiling at someone wrong, or using the wrong tone of voice. Every interaction a black person has with a white person is scrutinized. A black person who is confident, or educated, is deemed to be too “proud” --they're seen as putting themselves above their station, and that can’t be tolerated.
Grooms writes, too, about the pressure that white people are under to play their “role” – if they act too soft towards a black person, they are seen as challenging the supremacy of all white people. It seems nearly impossible that one person could make a difference against this tidal wave of hate. Tragically, it's Wayne's own friendship that puts Bertrand's life in danger.
The book is brutal – it’s not nearly as violent as it could be, but Grooms conveys the psychological terror the black community faced in these small Southern towns. Bertrand keeps thinking, how is it possible I fought for my country against the evil of the Nazis, and then came home to this? An educated man, he wants to believe that things are getting better. But as readers, we know from the very start of the book that he’s wrong.
What Grooms does is brilliant, because he puts us in the minds of these characters, and each perspective is horrifying in its own way. Lonnie because we see a young boy being shaped by the racism and violence around him; Bertrand because we like him and respect him; and Jacks, because we see inside the mind of what most white men must have been like. Grooms doesn’t try to give us the perspective of the most violent, bigoted man in town, but instead, a man with “moderate” views. And perhaps what I found most chilling is that this moderate, even sensitive man still doesn’t see African-Americans as human beings. It’s a tough reality to think about, but one we should be forced to, if we’re to understand the effects today.
I found myself particularly troubled by the role of women in this story. We know that many lynchings were the result of a black man bumping into a white woman or even looking at her. There’s a part of me that wants to think it was the men that were killing and torturing in the name of “protecting” their women. But several times in the book it’s the white women who are talking about black men as dirty, savage beasts, and maybe the role that women played is something I haven't wanted to confront. Grooms' novel doesn’t shy away from the role that perceptions of sexuality played in the history of lynching.
My one criticism of the book is that the last chapter felt disconnected from the rest of the book, like perhaps Grooms was advised to give us a “what happened later” ending he didn’t really want. As a reader I knew Lonnie would spend the rest of his life trying to make sense of what he experienced – but having it described for me wasn’t necessary. I was sorry the book ended where it did, because the rest of it was so powerful.
Chronologically, the book begins with Wayne (Lonnie’s father) coming home from World War II. Wayne, a white man, strikes up a friendship with fellow veteran Bertrand. Their perception of the world has the changed, from their travels, to the horrors they’ve seen, to the bonds they shared. Wayne's wife Aileen warns him that a black man and a white man can’t be friends in Talmaedge County. Their son Lonnie tries to understand the conflicting views of his parents, while he comes to see Bernard as a role model and friend.
This book forces you to look head-on at something you really don’t want to know about. Or, you think you know but you don’t, because you can’t. What this book made me realize, that I didn’t quite understand before, is the terror that African-Americans lived with constantly. The characters in this book live in constant fear of saying the wrong thing, or smiling at someone wrong, or using the wrong tone of voice. Every interaction a black person has with a white person is scrutinized. A black person who is confident, or educated, is deemed to be too “proud” --they're seen as putting themselves above their station, and that can’t be tolerated.
Grooms writes, too, about the pressure that white people are under to play their “role” – if they act too soft towards a black person, they are seen as challenging the supremacy of all white people. It seems nearly impossible that one person could make a difference against this tidal wave of hate. Tragically, it's Wayne's own friendship that puts Bertrand's life in danger.
The book is brutal – it’s not nearly as violent as it could be, but Grooms conveys the psychological terror the black community faced in these small Southern towns. Bertrand keeps thinking, how is it possible I fought for my country against the evil of the Nazis, and then came home to this? An educated man, he wants to believe that things are getting better. But as readers, we know from the very start of the book that he’s wrong.
What Grooms does is brilliant, because he puts us in the minds of these characters, and each perspective is horrifying in its own way. Lonnie because we see a young boy being shaped by the racism and violence around him; Bertrand because we like him and respect him; and Jacks, because we see inside the mind of what most white men must have been like. Grooms doesn’t try to give us the perspective of the most violent, bigoted man in town, but instead, a man with “moderate” views. And perhaps what I found most chilling is that this moderate, even sensitive man still doesn’t see African-Americans as human beings. It’s a tough reality to think about, but one we should be forced to, if we’re to understand the effects today.
I found myself particularly troubled by the role of women in this story. We know that many lynchings were the result of a black man bumping into a white woman or even looking at her. There’s a part of me that wants to think it was the men that were killing and torturing in the name of “protecting” their women. But several times in the book it’s the white women who are talking about black men as dirty, savage beasts, and maybe the role that women played is something I haven't wanted to confront. Grooms' novel doesn’t shy away from the role that perceptions of sexuality played in the history of lynching.
My one criticism of the book is that the last chapter felt disconnected from the rest of the book, like perhaps Grooms was advised to give us a “what happened later” ending he didn’t really want. As a reader I knew Lonnie would spend the rest of his life trying to make sense of what he experienced – but having it described for me wasn’t necessary. I was sorry the book ended where it did, because the rest of it was so powerful.
September 14, 2019
This was a difficult book to take in although the writing was mainly beautiful and multilayered. What made it hard is that it opened up to view the suffering and aspirations of black and white people in rural Georgia in 1946, revealed the lies and truths that sparked the violent murder of four black people at the hands of their white neighbors, and made clear how the memories haunted and shaped the main characters from the day of those deaths until the day that one more murder, this time of a white man, brought an end to the trajectory of aspiration and suffering. It is about evil and violence, fear and betrayal, grief and anger never softened, and contradictions not resolved. It is an intimate portrait of both white bigotry and racism and of black subjugation in a place where it cannot be escaped. I’m glad I read this book, and I’m saddened and angered by what it said. I think everyone who can read English and is adept at skipping over the tops of the waves of America’s past should read it and take the plunge into its depths.
February 5, 2020
I completely agree with the people who said the first three parts of the book were amazing but the last part flopped.
Parts 1-3 I couldn't put it down--I tore through it. Part 4 was not enjoyable. It took me 3 days to finish the last 40 pages. I understand how if you witnessed a crime of that magnitude you would be damaged. The way the damage was presented (mostly sexually) felt forced and I didn't feel it added anything to the story.
My advise---read the first 3 parts and call it good. You will have a 5 star read! Amazing writing, fantastic story.
Parts 1-3 I couldn't put it down--I tore through it. Part 4 was not enjoyable. It took me 3 days to finish the last 40 pages. I understand how if you witnessed a crime of that magnitude you would be damaged. The way the damage was presented (mostly sexually) felt forced and I didn't feel it added anything to the story.
My advise---read the first 3 parts and call it good. You will have a 5 star read! Amazing writing, fantastic story.
October 2, 2018
While Grooms' novel focuses on a racist multiple murder directly after World War II, it remains quite spacious in time, geography, character, and theme. Time and geography: the novel completes its action in the mid-seventies, having traveled from World War II Germany to rural Georgia to hippie California and back to metropolitan Georgia. Character: the novel gets convincingly told from multiple viewpoints, including a white man responsible for the murders, a black victim of those murders, and a young white witness of them. Themes: well there are many, guilt, homosexuality, masochism, racism, abiding ignorance, hopelessness, revenge, to name a few. For me, the most compelling factor of Conversation was Grooms' ability to faithfully give the readers so many varied voices. No, that’s not enough, I changed my mid-stream mind: plot keeps right up there with voice, for its quirky and inexorable movements become completely tied in with Lonnie's voice from the moment he innocently picks blackberries only to witness the murder of his erstwhile "father" Bertrand, a black man who knew his white biological father and extended charity after that father’s untimely death. We hear Lonnie carry the horrific murder through his childhood, through his long stint in the navy, and his time in California. It haunts him as his mother summons him back to Atlanta. It constantly molds him for better and for worse as a man until the inevitable end. The Vain Conversation is a treasure, a darkly pleasurable one.
June 28, 2018
I really enjoyed Parts 1-3, however Part 4 was disappointing. I got very frustrated at the end with the constant typos as well. I can't comprehend how a published book can be so poorly edited for basic misspellings and punctuation.
April 8, 2018
The subject matter makes this a difficult book to read, but the author makes the characters sympathetic and tells the story with heart. Maybe I wanted a little more depth.
May 6, 2018
I ain't the one to tell you to go or not to go. You the only one can do that. But I can tell you this. It ain't so easy as you might think to kill a man... If you go, even if you don't so much as throw a pebble, you are in it as much as the man who ties the noose. You might just be a bystander, but nobody is innocent, son.
In 1946, two black couples were lynched in Georgia. The Vain Conversation by Anthony Grooms is inspired by those events but is also an entirely original story. Told through the perspective of three characters, Grooms is able to to focus a tragic story into three compelling narratives from very different perspectives. For those worried about the potentially graphic content, the actual murder of the four individuals is more of an ominous event in either that past or present of the three character's story arcs.
The first character spotlighted is Lonnie, a young boy whose father has just returned from World War II. The second is Bertrand, a teacher who also has returned from a tour of duty and befriends Lonnie's father. The third is Jacks, a man that Bertrand trusts but his mother does not. I won't spoil their roles in the killing of four people. I went into reading this without knowing anything ahead of time and it made for a very tense experience trying to speculate how things would escalate and who would die when they did.
The book is also broken up into four parts. The first three are about one of each of the characters listed above, and the fourth is revisiting two of them decades later. The first and third sections (about Lonnie and Jacks respectively) drew me in instantly and had me very invested in the characters. The second section got a bit more bogged down by a long philosophical discussion between Bertrand and his wife, however it ended in the most tense pages in the entire book.
I was reminded a bit of Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing while reading this, as both books jumped around with character perspectives and timelines and dealt prominently with racial issues. I enjoyed this book even more than Homegoing though as the characters were more fully developed. Insightful commentary on heavy issues (often through common sense dialogue like the quote at the top of this review) is for the most part handled in a way that feels organic. Even when it drifts beyond that, I could forgive it for how thoughtful it was.
Much like the Best Picture Winner Moonlight from a few years back, the last time jump didn't entirely work for me. The vendetta that young Lonnie has developed over the years did not feel entirely earned and the final few pages ended so abruptly that I had to reread them just to make sure I didn't miss anything. The result is a near miss from a five star book. Still, for fans of historical fiction, race relations, or thrilling Rashomon style storytelling, The Vain Conversation is a great book and well worth checking out.
In 1946, two black couples were lynched in Georgia. The Vain Conversation by Anthony Grooms is inspired by those events but is also an entirely original story. Told through the perspective of three characters, Grooms is able to to focus a tragic story into three compelling narratives from very different perspectives. For those worried about the potentially graphic content, the actual murder of the four individuals is more of an ominous event in either that past or present of the three character's story arcs.
The first character spotlighted is Lonnie, a young boy whose father has just returned from World War II. The second is Bertrand, a teacher who also has returned from a tour of duty and befriends Lonnie's father. The third is Jacks, a man that Bertrand trusts but his mother does not. I won't spoil their roles in the killing of four people. I went into reading this without knowing anything ahead of time and it made for a very tense experience trying to speculate how things would escalate and who would die when they did.
The book is also broken up into four parts. The first three are about one of each of the characters listed above, and the fourth is revisiting two of them decades later. The first and third sections (about Lonnie and Jacks respectively) drew me in instantly and had me very invested in the characters. The second section got a bit more bogged down by a long philosophical discussion between Bertrand and his wife, however it ended in the most tense pages in the entire book.
I was reminded a bit of Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing while reading this, as both books jumped around with character perspectives and timelines and dealt prominently with racial issues. I enjoyed this book even more than Homegoing though as the characters were more fully developed. Insightful commentary on heavy issues (often through common sense dialogue like the quote at the top of this review) is for the most part handled in a way that feels organic. Even when it drifts beyond that, I could forgive it for how thoughtful it was.
Much like the Best Picture Winner Moonlight from a few years back, the last time jump didn't entirely work for me. The vendetta that young Lonnie has developed over the years did not feel entirely earned and the final few pages ended so abruptly that I had to reread them just to make sure I didn't miss anything. The result is a near miss from a five star book. Still, for fans of historical fiction, race relations, or thrilling Rashomon style storytelling, The Vain Conversation is a great book and well worth checking out.
July 29, 2022
This was an excellent book. I couldn't read it fast enough and found myself holding my breath at certain points while reading. I even had to put the book down after reading from Bertrand's point of view about the lynching. I found myself empathizing with each character while reading their viewpoints. There are always multiple sides to a story, multiple perspectives, and each person has an idea of what is right and wrong in relation to their upbringing and beliefs. As a Black person, I am thankful that I live in a time where I don't always have to think about white people in the way Bertrand and his wife thought, but I also feel frustrated than even after so much time has passed, that our people are still looked at and treated in similar ways to which the African Americans back then were treated. Not lynching (at least not publicly), but discrimination and being viewed as less than based on our skin color. I gave this book 4 stars because I felt like the Aza X portion of the book really didn't add to the plot, and because I felt like it was "overly wordy" at certain points. Overall, excellent book.
January 30, 2022
What a beautifully painful novel to read, one based on news stories of the killing of 4 people, set in the 1940s. The author created a fictional nonficton of the lives lived up to their deaths.
But it does much more than simply fabricate stories of real lives. From the afterword:
"You are a white man, play your role. Of the three charged words in that admonishment... which word earns our attention? Which word most warrants our cautions? Which word most deserves our fear? It is popular in the academy to describe social roles as "performances." We perform gender... race... class... How do we perform those roles for which we are not cast, but conscripted? Roles we did not seek, but found our selves playing unawares? In the case of [two main characters], characters a generation apart, this question haunts them throughout their days. In the Jim Crow South, what is the spiritual and moral configuration of the hierarchy of identity?"
But it does much more than simply fabricate stories of real lives. From the afterword:
"You are a white man, play your role. Of the three charged words in that admonishment... which word earns our attention? Which word most warrants our cautions? Which word most deserves our fear? It is popular in the academy to describe social roles as "performances." We perform gender... race... class... How do we perform those roles for which we are not cast, but conscripted? Roles we did not seek, but found our selves playing unawares? In the case of [two main characters], characters a generation apart, this question haunts them throughout their days. In the Jim Crow South, what is the spiritual and moral configuration of the hierarchy of identity?"
September 23, 2021
As a foreigner studying for years about history of relationship between white and African American in southern states, this is one of the best novels I've ever read to understand the complicated mentality of white people having witnessed lynching and feloucious murder of colored people. It opened my eyes toward their impotent feelings, surviver's guilt and struggle for their own redemption. Among a lot of suggestive and meaningful dialogues, the one between black female poet and its white protagonist is a masterpieace. Its postscript written by T Geronimo Johnson couldn't be better to give readers figurative imagination to contemplate further the questions this novel proposed.
March 28, 2018
3.6 Yes this is a good book for conversation...and I say conversation, not arguing. The idea I come away with is HOPE. We are all people. “We are all guilty and innocent.” We all don’t hear and understand the same way. We all are all striving for justice. Hating and hatred will eat you up. Racial strife in the world has been around since the beginning of the human race but this book highlights the 1940’s -1970’s in southern USA. The murder of 4 blacks in Walton, Ga. in 1946 is a catalyst for this novel . Good writing...but not a pleasant read.
February 28, 2019
Very difficult book about a terrible event that happened far too often in the south. The book is beautifully written, Mr. Grooms writes clear sentences that evoke strong emotions. While the subject was difficult I didn’t want the book to ever end because his characters were so complete and real.
I will be looking for more great books by him.
We had never heard of Mr. Grooms until we were in a local bookstore to hear another local author introduce her latest book and Tony was there. He spoke briefly about his book and his tone and the subject of his book made it a must have.
I will be looking for more great books by him.
We had never heard of Mr. Grooms until we were in a local bookstore to hear another local author introduce her latest book and Tony was there. He spoke briefly about his book and his tone and the subject of his book made it a must have.
August 21, 2025
This novel was both an easy read and a hard one, which is fitting since the story itself goes beyond the relentless binary society seeks today. Of all the characters, Bertrand, Luellen, Beah, Milledge, Jimmy Lee, Wayne and Lonnie are all the closest to "good." Venable, best I can tell, is pure evil. Jacks and Crookshanks think they are good, but are they? Characters refer to Beah and Jimmy Lee as bad because he has a wife and she is pregnant out of wedlock, but does that make them bad?
If you're going to read this book--and I highly recommend it--get ready for a ton more questions, most more sophisticated than these. In the end, Grooms's characters are fully human and thus complex--sometimes painfully so.
If you're going to read this book--and I highly recommend it--get ready for a ton more questions, most more sophisticated than these. In the end, Grooms's characters are fully human and thus complex--sometimes painfully so.
June 2, 2022
Well-drawn portraits of several characters helped me see myself in some of them. Cruelty and obliviousness, calculations and selfishness, plus young Lonnie's innocence, combine for terrible impact. However the author doesn't keep the reader constantly depressed; the pain is doled out sparingly. I liked the timing, and the way some characters developed over time.
The major drawback to me is the brief but explicit rape and sex scenes. Just makes it difficult to recommend to my teens.
The major drawback to me is the brief but explicit rape and sex scenes. Just makes it difficult to recommend to my teens.
August 25, 2018
Painful but timely read. The book, set in the 1950s following WWII, opens with the murder of four black people, one a pregnant woman. In the section in which you hear their voices and get to know them, the horror of that event is intensified. I would argue the ending sections weakened an otherwise good book, but its issues of race, guilt, and justice continue to be our issues today.
August 5, 2020
This story of the Moore's Ford lynching in Georgia rounds out characters I read about in the AJC news stories, and makes the events more real and of course more horrible. Told from the POV of a young boy who witnessed the lynching and did not speak until he was an old man, I understand why he did not speak up at the time or even as a younger man. So much hidden history needs to be told!
August 2, 2019
"But they don't want to be forgiven, Bertrand. .. They don't even see what they have done wrong." "Uncle Rye," as he had been known to the white families until his lynching.
You are a white man; play your role.
You are a white man; play your role.
February 28, 2018
An important an well written book.
June 6, 2018
This book is incredibly good. I read it in one sitting. Luellen is the character who made me get goosebumps. That poor woman's terror was so well written.
November 26, 2018
I like the way this story was told from multiple viewpoints. Helps with understanding.
December 9, 2018
well-written
December 21, 2018
Excellent read .
December 27, 2018
A near perfect book. Beautifully written and considered. Only the ending felt a little rushed. But highly recommended.
Read
December 28, 2019Started of twice and couldn't get into it.
Read
February 17, 2018Listen to my interview with Anthony Grooms in Episode 27 of the Literary Atlanta podcast, released February 15, 2018.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews