Having taught 'A Roll of Thunder' for a number of years I took the first chance I had to read her short stories - which amazingly came later. I say amazingly because they were dire in comparison to the earlier novel. Very contrived. If they'd been earlier I'd have understood the progression as a writer - but it wasn't so.
Anyway - perhaps they'd been written earlier and some greedy publisher had put them out after the success of 'Roll of Thunder...?
I decided to give Taylor a second chance by reading 'The Road to Memphis'
The novel’s main action is triggered by a racist incident in the Mississippi town of Strawberry. When Cassie & Stacey Logan & their friends, Little Willie, Moe, & Clarence, stop at a local garage to repair the tyre of a high status car recently purchased by a young black man - they're asking for trouble, right? And they get it in spades. Three white brothers harass Moe. He loses his temper & severely beats all three young men with a tyre wrench. The white Jeremy Simms (even though it is his cousins who lie injured) helps Moe escape Strawberry & certain lynching, & drives him to Jackson to meet Stacey, Cassie, Little Willie, & Clarence. Moe’s friends realize that Moe isn’t safe anywhere in the South & decide to drive through the night to Memphis, where they will put him on a train to Chicago.
The trip to Memphis is filled with dangerous situations, & the headaches that Clarence has been complaining about get so bad that the group has to leave Clarence with a healing woman on the road to Memphis. Eventually they get to Memphis & put Moe on a train to Chicago. While Stacey, Cassie, & Little Willie are in Memphis, Clarence dies from a brain haemorrhage, so the three friends return home grieving over the loss of two of their good friends: Clarence dead & Moe in exile in the North.
Back in Strawberry, in the presence of the sheriff, his father, & his racist cousins, Jeremy Simms confesses that he helped Moe escape, & Charlie Simms beats Jeremy & then disowns him.
The novel concludes with a bittersweet reunion at the Logan home, interrupted by Jeremy, who has come to say good-bye to the Logans before he enlists in the military, following the outbreak of WWII.
The summary makes it sound better than it actually is. There are some very annoying and unconvincing characters (Clarence's pregnant girlfriend) and then there are some downright unbelievable characters (the black journalist from the north who settles in the south) and some very unconvincing writing - anything to do with love relationships and sexual attraction.
However I'm glad I read the novel and have been sufficient intrigued, by passing references to earlier events, to read the novel that comes after 'Roll of Thunder' and before 'The Road to Memphis'. This novel is called 'Let the Circle Be Unbroken'.
Not available in any Coventry library or bookshop - unless I put in a special order for over £7. So I purchased it from ebay - £2.95 including post & packaging.
No comments:
Post a Comment