From New York Times bestselling author Eleanor Henderson, an audacious American epic set in rural Georgia during the years of the Depression and Prohibition.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 … 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.
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Complex characters, sharply drawn setting and plot, accurate historical, social and scientific details of that time.
The twelve mile straight is a great read. What a story! The plight of share croppers in the rural south . The racism is heartbreaking and the ignorance and want of all of the characters draws you in and makes you want to certainly find out what could possibly be coming next.
Great Character development. I could feel Kaya’s loneliness, and the pleasure and security she derived from the marsh, water, and waterfowl. Loved her ability to survive and care for herself, and her bright, observant mind . I love the NC coast and marshes and could see and smell them.
Just ok. Found it difficult to read. Kept waiting for it to peak my interest. Didn’t happen.
The 12 Mile Straight had plenty of twists and turns. I really enjoyed how small bits of information were released throughout the story building to the book’s denouement.
Overcoming the situation they grew up in. Strong characters. Feeling of being right there.
Long story with strong characters and a steady plot. Good book.
Could not finish this book! Gave it my customary 100 pages and gave up. WAY too depressing!
Interesting book. Lots of historical information about both the blacks and whites inthe south.
The tale is not an easy read. It is stuffed full of slaverly, racism, terrible sexual attacks and extreme bullying. Now, you may wonder, what kept me reading this book? I found the characters very interesting, and I was drawn into the era of slavery and outright racism that I did not live through. I know racism still exists, but it is so different from the time covered in this book. It behooves us to never go back and certainly to see people as people and not as objects.
No doubt there is much truth underlying this story and its’characters. Difficult to believe what women, in particular, could endure……and probably still do.
Seemed to be a good look at bad times, poverty Lots of research. Characters well developed and real. Will read again, and recommend.
Full of secrets and revelations.
I didn’t finish the book. It didn’t make any sense to me and I wasn’t enjoying it.
This was a very unusual book. The characters were okay–but hardly likable. There were a number of twists and turns in the plot, which made it interesting to read, but the characters were so weird, that the reader really didn’t care about what happened to them.
Thought provoking
A Southern Gothic, set in rural GA in the Great Depression, this book has some incredibly well-written sentences and a lyrical, literary quality and should capture readers who enjoy stories about the South.
The main two women characters are a young, tough, pretty sharecropper’s white daughter and a younger black woman with a tragic past and a tangled relationship with the white family she lives with. The third main character seems like someone who barely escaped the pages of Erskine Caldwell’s “Tobacco Road,” an illiterate, trashy man with a cruel streak who makes “cotton gin” (moonshine) to augment his meager sharecropping income and who personifies ignorance.
This is a compelling read, with some beautiful descriptive passages and a page-turning quality. But it is also filled with many (many!) standard Southern Gothic tropes–the lynching of an innocent black man, the forced white on black sex, sharecroppers, the rich but mean landowner and mill owner, the rich man’s decadent and useless son, the chain gang, barefoot children working in the cotton mill, moonshine, etc etc etc… (At least there’s not a crazy aunt in the attic).
Also, the fundamental concept of the story is based upon a failed deception that never felt authentic to me in the sense that I never for once believed a white man from rural GA in this time frame would subject his daughter to the situation he did. These are big flaws, and yet…and yet, the book grabbed me and I kept reading, the characters invaded my imagination, and I truly cared what happened to the two women at the center. In the end, the sisterhood quality and the sheer magic of the language and writing carried me past the cliches.
Also, the author gives the characters a depth and complexity that all but lifts them from their stereotypical frame. Juke, for example, the trashy white sharecropper/moonshiner, has some unusual qualities that one would not expect in a man in his situation. The stereotypes can be forgiven because of the sheer high quality of the writing. The author proves she is a skilled, talented story-teller. That’s worth a lot.
This book just kept jumping all over the place, but I kept reading hoping it would get better. It didn’t. The ending was a disappointment.
ok
I enjoyed this book. Some surprises unveiled. Some sad situations, also.