Helpful Score: 1
ISBN 0375725776 - My reason for choosing to read this book turned out not to be the reason that I ended up liking it. I generally enjoy historical fiction and - it being Black History Month - this seemed like a good time for this tale. The fact that the book is, quite obviously, based on / inspired by the true story of Minnie M. Cox turned out to be more interesting.
1902: Tandy Payne has returned home, having gambled away everything. He finds that his brother, Leighton, has added mayor to newspaperman as his current job and Tandy hopes to use this to his advantage. Tandy needs an income, although he's not particularly interested in working, and when he discovers that a Negress works as postmistress, he sets his sights on her job. Better, from his perspective, the woman happens to be someone he's known all of his life, someone who witnessed some of his personal and family shames. While re-igniting racism in the town isn't hard for Tandy, it's all very hard on his brother. Leighton is opposed to everything Tandy is doing and his fall from relative power as mayor comes as Tandy and racism rise. Eventually, the eyes of the nation, and the president, are on the small town of Loring, but only Leighton seems to recognize Loring's shame.
The true story of Minnie M. Cox (who, as of this writing, doesn't have a wikipedia page, sadly) is clearly woven into the fictional Visible Spirits, and the fact that the author and Cox share a hometown only makes me wish he'd taken it on as a historical tale rather than an embellished historical fiction.
Author Steve Yarbrough does a somewhat uneven job with his storytelling, perhaps as a tool to keep the reader reading. Vague allusions to things that characters know, that the reader doesn't, sometimes works. It worked in establishing the relationship between Leighton, Tandy and Loda, for example. Yarbrough uses the same device to refer, repeatedly, to the terrible events that happened on the Deadening (the property once owned by the Payne family). Unfortunately, in this case, it doesn't work as well and becomes more annoying than intriguing. Some authors seem to write from a place that assumes that the reader knows everything the author knows; Yarbrough seems to have done that here. It isn't true, of course, and it leaves much unsaid based on the assumption that the reader already knows.
The ending is poor, for the same reason. The author apparently assumes that he's set the stage for the reader, but making the connection between Miss Bessie's lucid and rational conversation and Loda's somewhat irrational rambling isn't entirely intuitive. Portions of the story are horrific and are well-told; readers will find themselves properly shocked by tales that are most horrifying for their accuracy. Those with an aversion to bad language, graphic sex and/or the use of the word nigger, will want to avoid this one. Not fantastic, but worth reading, and well worth some follow up research on Cox's story.
- AnnaLovesBooks
1902: Tandy Payne has returned home, having gambled away everything. He finds that his brother, Leighton, has added mayor to newspaperman as his current job and Tandy hopes to use this to his advantage. Tandy needs an income, although he's not particularly interested in working, and when he discovers that a Negress works as postmistress, he sets his sights on her job. Better, from his perspective, the woman happens to be someone he's known all of his life, someone who witnessed some of his personal and family shames. While re-igniting racism in the town isn't hard for Tandy, it's all very hard on his brother. Leighton is opposed to everything Tandy is doing and his fall from relative power as mayor comes as Tandy and racism rise. Eventually, the eyes of the nation, and the president, are on the small town of Loring, but only Leighton seems to recognize Loring's shame.
The true story of Minnie M. Cox (who, as of this writing, doesn't have a wikipedia page, sadly) is clearly woven into the fictional Visible Spirits, and the fact that the author and Cox share a hometown only makes me wish he'd taken it on as a historical tale rather than an embellished historical fiction.
Author Steve Yarbrough does a somewhat uneven job with his storytelling, perhaps as a tool to keep the reader reading. Vague allusions to things that characters know, that the reader doesn't, sometimes works. It worked in establishing the relationship between Leighton, Tandy and Loda, for example. Yarbrough uses the same device to refer, repeatedly, to the terrible events that happened on the Deadening (the property once owned by the Payne family). Unfortunately, in this case, it doesn't work as well and becomes more annoying than intriguing. Some authors seem to write from a place that assumes that the reader knows everything the author knows; Yarbrough seems to have done that here. It isn't true, of course, and it leaves much unsaid based on the assumption that the reader already knows.
The ending is poor, for the same reason. The author apparently assumes that he's set the stage for the reader, but making the connection between Miss Bessie's lucid and rational conversation and Loda's somewhat irrational rambling isn't entirely intuitive. Portions of the story are horrific and are well-told; readers will find themselves properly shocked by tales that are most horrifying for their accuracy. Those with an aversion to bad language, graphic sex and/or the use of the word nigger, will want to avoid this one. Not fantastic, but worth reading, and well worth some follow up research on Cox's story.
- AnnaLovesBooks
