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LAY THAT TRUMPET IN OUR HANDS
by Susan Carol McCarthy
Bantam, January 2002
288 pages
$23.95
ISBN: 0553801694


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

This book will take you back to the Deep South in 1951 when white bullies dressed in sheets could with impunity beat and kill black people and laugh about it afterwards. Catholics and Jews were also fair game. And the federal government, that far off meddler in Washington, had no business telling a state what its people could or could not do.

The McMahons were Northerners, originally, and they talked and acted like Northerners. They had not known precisely what they were getting into when they bought a citrus farm in Florida, but they soon found out. They befriended blacks, especially Luther, Armetta, and Marvin Cully. They were not only coworkers, but confidants. Marvin became the mentor of Mary Louise or Reesa, the narrator of this story, showing her the flora and fauna and teaching her about her world. He also taught baseball and other valuable things to her younger brother Ren. He was their idol.

The summer of 1951 was a bad one for black people in Florida. There were bombings and shootings and lynchings until even President Harry Truman, who vacationed in Key West, ordered his Justice Department to investigate. For the McMahons it all started with the lynching of Marvin, a killing they soon learned was accidental for he had been mistaken for some other man. Events soon escalated from there and the McMahons found themselves isolated and at risk as well.

This is a poignant moving story of a young girl forced to grow up too fast in the midst of violence and the complete disregard of all laws of decency and justice. From the very beginning she has to face the death of her dearest friend, a death for which there is no rhyme or reason. She sees her father threatened and her mother afraid. Even her grandmother, a dauntless soul, is forced into dread. Klansmen insult Reesa with impunity and one suggests she is a Jew and should leave the county entirely. She does gain a new friend and learns an unlikely story about a woman she thought was just plain mean. And she does grow up and learns that while the world is not necessarily fair and there are no guarantees, as she tells her new friend "One thing for sure (I know because I've tried it both ways) is that we can't give up up hope. Marvin's mother says hope keeps us going. . . "

We, of course, see the story from her point of view which may not always be accurate but always reflects what she believes to be true. She is excited to meet Thurgood Marshall, who is the New York lawyer for the NAACP, and other leaders of that organization. She is proud of the role she plays in making life just a little bit easier for blacks in Florida.

The characters are beautifully and sympathetically drawn and the Klansmen are suitably ignorant and racist. The story is tenderly and affectionately told. It was difficult for me to put it down. This is a first novel and the author says it is based on true events that happened to her family when she was growing up. It is, she says, her fathers story and as accurate historically as she can make it. However, many of the principal and secondary characters are her creations and she tries to catch the sense, the significance of what happened rather than tell an exact and factually true story. I believe she does a fine job of capturing the essence of the South before the civil rights revolution of the 1960s and explaining the reasons why such a revolution was necessary. This is an excellent first novel.

Reviewed by Sally A. Fellows, July 2002

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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