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A Novel
by Eleanor HendersonFrom New York Times bestselling author Eleanor Henderson, an audacious American epic set in rural Georgia during the years of the Depression and Prohibition.
Named a Best Book of 2017 by The San Francisco Chronicle
An Entertainment Weekly "Must-Read" Book for Fall
Cotton County, Georgia, 1930: in a house full of secrets, two babies-one light-skinned, the other dark-are born to Elma Jesup, a white sharecropper's daughter. Accused of her rape, field hand Genus Jackson is lynched and dragged behind a truck down the Twelve-Mile Straight, the road to the nearby town. In the aftermath, the farm's inhabitants are forced to contend with their complicity in a series of events that left a man dead and a family irrevocably fractured.
Despite the prying eyes and curious whispers of the townspeople, Elma begins to raise her babies as best as she can, under the roof of her mercurial father, Juke, and with the help of Nan, the young black housekeeper who is as close to Elma as a sister. But soon it becomes clear that the ties that bind all of them together are more intricate than any could have ever imagined. As startling revelations mount, a web of lies begins to collapse around the family, destabilizing their precarious world and forcing all to reckon with the painful truth.
Acclaimed author Eleanor Henderson has returned with a novel that combines the intimacy of a family drama with the staggering presence of a great Southern saga. Tackling themes of racialized violence, social division, and financial crisis, The Twelve-Mile Straight is a startlingly timely, emotionally resonant, and magnificent tour de force.
ONE
Genus Jackson was killed in Cotton County, Georgia, on a summer midnight in 1930, when the newborn twins were fast asleep. They lay head to toe in a cradle meant for one, Winnafred on one side and Wilson on the other. In their overstuffed nest, with the delicate claws of their fingers intertwined and their eyelids trembling with blue veins, they looked like a pair of baby chicks, their white skullcaps like two halves of the single eggshell from which they'd hatched. Only if you looked closelyand people didcould you see that the girl was pink as a piglet, and the boy was brown.
"He's just complected dark," Elma had told her fiancé, Freddie Wilson, that afternoon, when he'd peeked into the cradle for the first time. "It's my great-great- granddaddy's Indian blood."
"He don't look like no Indian," said Freddie, who was as freckled as Elma, with hair as pale and straight as straw.
It was Elma's father, Jukewho'd nearly ...
Here are some of the comments posted about The Twelve-Mile Straight in our legacy forum.
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And what about Oliver?
I liked Oliver in this novel. He made life easier for Elma and also for Nan. He enlightened everyone of Wilsons paternity. - taking.mytime
Did you suspect who Nan and the twins' fathers were before the truth was revealed?
I was suspect to the parentage of both Winnie and Wilson. However, I was also suspect of the parentage of Nan. I was sure I had figured it out just before it was revealed. - taking.mytime
Do you think any of the three men Ketty was involved with cared about her?
I agree with the others - Sterling loved her, the rest just used her. - taking.mytime
eating clay
Although I have never researched this action, I know that I have read about this in other various historical fiction novels. It seems it is always a female living under a poor economic standard. I related it to the lack of food and the lack of ... - taking.mytime
Elma and Nan "knew how easy it was to fashion a sibling, even when the sibling slept under another roof, with a family of its own." Do you agree? Do you have friends who are as close (or closer) than a sibling would be?
Yes, I definitely do. I have five siblings, and we are close emotionally, but separated by distance. I have friends living in close proximity whom I consider to be my "siblings by choice." Both the family of origin and the family of choice are ... - juliaa
I don't know where to start, I loved this book SO MUCH! (Lee M). So far, this is my choice for best book of 2017- it's a page turner! (Rosemary K). I was blown away reading it; the prose and style were so captivating that I felt at times I was actually there in the moment as the events of the story unfolded (Janine S). I loved how the truths in the story were revealed slowly, in layers, reaching backward and forward in time (Kristine M). It will join other favorites on my bookshelf to be read again (Liz D)...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by First Impressions Reviewers).
The major characters in The Twelve-Mile Straight grew up as sharecroppers.
Merriam-Webster defines a sharecropper as "a tenant farmer
who is provided with credit for seed, tools, living quarters, and food, who works the land, and who receives an agreed share of the value of the crop minus charges." While farming methods similar to sharecropping have been used around the world for millennia, the concept of the tenant farmer became especially prevalent in the United States during the post-Civil War era known as Reconstruction (1863-1867) and through the first half of the 20th century.
During the last few months of the Civil War, Union General William T. Sherman issued what was known as "Field Order Number ...
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