Two Historical Fictions

Two Historical Fictions

Lay That Trumpet In Our Hands (YA)
"'But, Daddy,' I say, 'Marvin's dead.'
'Can't you call the Sheriff, or one of the County
Commissioners?' Doto demands.
'The Sheriff, the Commisioner, the Opalakee chief of police,
they're all Klan members. Even goddamn Governor Fuller Warren is one
of them.'"
When most people think of KKK violence and obstruction of
justice their minds leap to states like Mississippi and Alabama.
Florida tends to fly under the radar. But history shows that they had
more than their share of Klan infiltration and malevolent dominance.
Carol McCarthy's Lay That Trumpet In Our Hands, based on real life
events, brings this hidden truth to life for younger readers.
It's the wee hours of the morning. A knock at the door rouses
Reesa (12), McCarthy's protagonist. The unexpected visitor is Luther,
a Black friend of the family. His son, Marvin (19), hasn't returned
home hours after he'd promised to. His wife, Armetta, is worried
sick. He needs Reesa's dad to help him find Marvin.
When the truck finally returns Reesa's father calls for towels
and blankets. She looks in the truck bed. Marvin lies there,
bleeding, dying, obviously the victim of a violent crime. The doctor
is unable to save his life.
Reesa is devastated by the fact that Marvin won't ever be coming
back. She's known him all her life. In fact he's been like a big
brother to her: giving her nicknames, telling her stories, and
teaching her skills like steering a go-cart.
"Oh, Marvin...Remember when I wasn't looking forward to teenage
dances because I didn't know how; and you said, 'Don't worry, Li'l
Rooster, Ah'll teach yuh t' Car'lina shag with the best of 'em.' Who's
going to teach me now?"
Armetta had been housekeeper for a white family. She decides to
look for another job. She can no longer work for a Klan family. When
Miz Lucy begs her to come back, claiming that Reed (her husband) had
nothing to do with Marvin's Murder she replies,
"No, Ma'am, I can't know that. Ah'm not saying Mistuh Reed
pulled the trigger, or nothing like that. But ah knows it was the
Klan that kilt mah Marvin and that Mistah Reed's a member."
In more official places the Klan isn't being blamed. Maybe they
were all that in the past. But now they've been considerably tamed.
Now it's just a bunch of "overgrown boys" getting away from wives and
responsibities to play poker. Reesa's white citrus grower father, a
northern transplant disagrees.
"Like Doto says, we are strangers in a strange land. The Klan's
been around here for years--stupid stuff mostly, burning crosses,
pestering couples parking in the dark, picking on Negroes they thought
were getting uppity, whatever that means. But this week, they crossed
the line."
That isn't the only line they're willing to cross, secure in
their knowledge that police and politicians have robes in their
closets. Lay That Trumpet In Our Hands shows younger readers the dark
side of the 1950's Florida that was being heavily promoted as a
paradise for out of state vacationers.

The Book Of Lost Friends (adult)
"Every chance there is, Mama says them words in my ear--who's
been carried away from us, and what's the name of the buyers that took
them from the auction block and where they gone to. We start with
Aunt Jenny, her three oldest girls, oldest to youngest..."
It's 1875. The Civil War has been over for a decade. Teenage
Hannie, who, as a child, witnessed her family being sold away from her
one by one, is a sharecropper working land near where her family was
enslaved. Her former master goes missing. When his daughter and his
biracial daughter by a mistress set off to find him she disguises as a
boy so she can drive the carriage for them. It's a perilous journey.
But maybe, just maybe, she cab locate some of her lost loved ones.
"Across the hall, a substitute teacher screams incessantly
during my readings as she attempts to control science room chaos. The
science teacher who started the year with me has already given up and
claimed she had to go home because of a flare-up in her mother's
lupus. She's gone. Just like that."
Fast forward to 1987. For Benny, a newly minted teacher, her
first school is in a small Southern town. Her students and their
families are mired in a kind of poverty she's never known before
existed. It's unlikely they'll ever escape it. Resources are very
unevenly divided between her school and the one reserved for the more
well off kids. She doesn't even have enough textbooks. Many of her
colleagues are burned out, satisfied with keeping their students
coralled in the classroom.
Benny believes the students deserve better. But how can she
find a meaningful way of engaging kids the rest of the world seems to
have given up on?
The narratives are interspersed beautifully. Lisa Wingate is
pitch perfect at switching voices whenever one episode comes to a real
cliffhanger. But the book is much more than the sum of its two
stories. Bit by bit their rich interconnections are revealed.
Lost Friends columns are placed between chapters. They're
letters that were run on a regular basis by a newspaper, the
Southwestern, in the years after the Civil War, written by Blacks
desperately seeking any word of lost loved ones. Pastors read these
letters from their pulpits to their congregations. It was knowledge
of these letters that inspired the book. The character of Hannie was
partly based on one of the writers.
If you're a lover of rich, vivid historical fiction, especially
if you enjoyed Julie Kibbler's Home For Erring And Outcast Girls,
you'll find The Book Of Lost Friends to be a must read.
On a purrrsonal note, the last two weekday days were incredible.
Thursday I was supposed to help lead a campus tour. I left the
Memorial Union in plenty of time to get to the grad school building
under normal circumstances. These were not normal circumstances. The
students are back on campus. I didn't realize how many would be
excited to see me and eager to know what I've been up to. I'm still
popular after 18 months away. How cool is that? Anyway by the time I
got to the meeting place that tour had sailed. (I did mail an apology
which was accepted). So Friday I gave myself plenty of time before my
shift started at work (my first since oh, snap, pandemic became our
greatest nightmare come to life). Then when I got to work you would
have thought I was a rock star. The classified (non student) workers
were screaming like they were at a concert. Everyone was just so
thrilled to have me back. It was the outside president's dinner we
hold on the mall. So I saw all the supers and managers from all over
campus and their bosses who were also thrilled to have me back. Plus
more of my student friends. I worked 5 1/2 hours serving and then
scrubbing pans. I slept like a cat. All that fresh air and exercise.
Now I'm at community garden waiting for everyone else to arrive. (Jules)
I like her perfume. Eau de dining services. This time it was chicken
underlaid with a hint of something spicy. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to all our friends back on campus.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway


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