From Publishers Weekly
Set in the neighborhood of Quakertown in a north Texas city in the 1920s, Martin's first novel (after a short story collection, The Least You Need to Know, and a memoir, From Our House) perfectly captures the quiet cicada hum of everyday life in a sleepy Southern community as well as the racial tension simmering beneath the surface. "Little" Washington Jones is a gardener of uncommon skill, able to make nearly anything grow in Denton's dry soil. What Little can't do is mend his broken town, or save his daughter, Camellia, from the heartbreak that will result from her love for the banker's son, Kizer Bell. When Little's employer, Andrew Bell, asks him to help smooth the division of Quakertown into white and black neighborhoods, Little doesn't know what to think. But Mr. Bell is a trustworthy man, and Little knows that the town will be segregated with or without him so he agrees to act as a go-between to the black community, for which he'll receive the job of caretaker for the new city garden and keep his place in the white neighborhood. But as the town divides, ugly feelings erupt, and it soon becomes clear that while Little may not lose his house, he will lose his home. For Martin, the genius is in the details a silver bead rolling across the floor, the clink of teacups rattling in the memory, the stretch of a man's neck as he leans away and the narrative acquires a fine, lace-like quality. While the characters fill somewhat basic roles, they evade stereotype by being finely drawn and compassionately understood. Unfortunately, Martin's light hand fails him toward the end, resulting in a too pat conclusion, but his gently melancholy style strikes a fine balance between literary fiction and accessible, emotion-driven storytelling.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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From Booklist
In post-Reconstruction Texas, Denton is a prosperous town in the north of the state with a rich history, pleasant living, and a women's college. On its outskirts is Quakertown, a thriving African American neighborhood, most of whose residents are of the first and second generations after emancipation. Race relations are cordial and even warm for a few enlightened individuals in both parts of Denton. But the Klan comes to town, and a Quakertown gardener takes it upon himself to save friends and neighbors from further maliciousness or worse. Martin captures the essence of the town and of social movements within its communities, which encompass followers of Marcus Garvey's return-to-Africa campaigns, fierce race separatists, those interested in keeping things how they've always been, and white industrialists who loved black women in their youth. Based on a genuine historical event, Martin's novel beautifully portrays an ugly time in a town's--and the nation's--history.
Michael SpinellaCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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