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Page from a Tennessee Journal

Description

In Francine Howard’s stunning debut, Page from a Tennessee Journal, rural Tennessee of 1913 remains an unforgiving place for two couples--one black, the other white--who stumble against the rigid boundaries separating their worlds. When white farmer Alexander McNaughton falters into forbidden love with Annalaura Welles he discovers that he has much more to fear than the wrath of her returning gun-toting husband. Alexander’s wife – flinty and pragmatic Eula Mae –wages her own battle against the stoicism demanded of white women of her time and social standing. Former sharecropper John Welles, flush with cash from his year's sojourn working the poker tables in "the second best colored whorehouse in all of Nashville," wrestles with his devils as he struggles to assign blame for his wife's relationship with a white man. The convergence of the lives and choices of these fascinating characters– made from fear, pride, determination, spite, nobility and revenge –leads to a heart-pounding and heartbreaking climax that feels at once original, audacious and inevitable.

Amazon Exclusive: Zetta Elliot Interviews Francine Thomas Howard

In this Amazon exclusive, we brought together AmazonEncore authors Zetta Elliott and Francine Thomas Howard to discuss Francine's first novel, Page from a Tennessee Journal.

Zetta Elliott has spent the past 15 years studying, writing, and teaching. She earned her Ph.D. in American Studies from NYU in 2003 and has taught black feminist cultural criticism at Ohio University, Louisiana State University, and Mount Holyoke College. Her young adult novel, A Wish After Midnight, which explores race relations through the eyes of a contemporary teen displaced in Civil War-era Brooklyn, was published in February 2010. Read her exclusive interview with Francine Thomas Howard:

Zetta Elliott: There was a point early in the novel when I felt a pang of dread: Annalaura is a vulnerable black woman alone in the South and Alex is a powerful white man. As a writer of historical fiction, how do you get people to keep on reading when they feel they already know how this story ends?

Francine Thomas Howard: It is my job as a writer to foreshadow for the reader that he or she does not know how the story ends. My most difficult challenge in writing Page from a Tennessee Journal was climbing inside the mind of a white man who had no hesitation about donning a bed sheet and sticking a pillowcase over his head to terrorize a black man. Very few of us see ourselves as evil, even when our actions are despicable. Everything Alexander McNaughton did made sense to him within the context of his world. Readers keep turning those pages because they want to know what will happen next. I believe it is the responsibility of the writer of historical fiction to challenge the reader to look beyond the stereotypes for the "rest of the story."

Zetta Elliott: As a black feminist, there were times when I found it hard to hear white and black women in your novel giving each other not-so-sound marital advice. How do you think contemporary women will relate to the female characters you've created?

Francine Thomas Howard: As much as we believe that contemporary women would think and choose differently from Aunt Becky and Fedora, I feel it’s important to remember that early 20th-century women were not privy to the array of options available to American women today. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers were told often enough that men were the Bible-ordained heads of their households.

Transport yourself back to the South of 1913 when white husbands could bed a woman of color with abandon. That they were committing adultery never entered their heads. Their world even permitted them to house their black families on the same property--sometimes even in the family home with his white wife and children. Those women, like Eula Mae, had no soft place to cry out their humiliation. They were told to bury it, pretend interracial love could never happen. Sadly, a searing cut to the heart like Eula suffered is something with which contemporary women can strongly identify.

Zetta Elliott: What motivated you to make a white man--who is usually the villain in this kind of scenario--into a sympathetic character? Why should readers care about Alex McNaughton?

Francine Thomas Howard: Precisely because the white man is usually portrayed as a one-dimensional villain. While I don't think Alex is any more worthy of sympathy than John Welles, I found it important to portray him against stereotype. Alex, like John, is a flawed man. But even people with flaws have redeeming qualities. Alexander saw himself as nothing out of the ordinary in his world--maybe even a tad smarter and less harsh than most of his contemporaries. His world granted him the right to bed a "colored" woman any time he chose. Hadn't it always been so? Unlike his crass in-laws, Alex saw himself as a man with higher moral standards. He had never forced a woman into his bed and he wasn't about to start with Annalaura.

His trial came when that unexplainable spark flamed his heart into love for a black woman. The portrayal of Alexander McNaughton as a multi-faceted human being--the good and the bad--is critical to the reader's understanding that the Jim Crow rules laid down to keep blacks in our place also shackled whites.

Zetta Elliott: Did you have any concerns about your unfavorable representation of John Welles? Other black women writers once faced a backlash from those who felt black men ought to be portrayed in a "positive" light. Did John have to be "bad" in order for Alex to look "good"?

Francine Thomas Howard: I'm aware of the firestorm surrounding Alice Walker's The Color Purple and the character of Mister. But, of course, I don't see John Welles as "bad." Instead, I see him as a man of towering strength and determination. Early on, John declares that he cannot tolerate the indignity of reducing his family to life among the cows and pigs. He does everything in his power to provide a better existence for his family. His final sacrifice for the woman he loves and their children is the stuff of heroes. Is he flawed, and did he make bone-headed miscalculations in his goal to improve life for his family? You bet he did, but even heroes who float in the clouds have to put their feet on the ground sometimes.

Is John "bad" compared to Alex's "good"? I think the reader will see that each man acted out of what he believed to be right, not only for himself but for those he loved. Neither required the other to determine their level of virtue.

Zetta Elliott: Americans have varied experiences and attitudes about the past; we share a common history, yet everyone has a unique story to tell. What do you hope your novel will contribute to the American storytelling tradition?

Francine Thomas Howard: It is my fervent hope that stories like Page from a Tennessee Journal will prompt the reader to take a closer look into black/white issues. In the past few years, dramatic events--Katrina, prominent murder trials, Obama's presidential campaign and election--have moved the country to the edges of real dialogue about our racial past. Yet we always pull back. The topic hurts too much. The surface reality of misery and horror with which we are all familiar is not only painful, it has become polarizing. Some Americans feel re-victimized and demoralized. Others resent what they feel is misplaced guilt-by-association. Books that peel back that first ugly layer of our past to take a deeper look into the years of slavery and Jim Crow have the opportunity of inching the two sides toward sustained dialogue. I hope that stories like the intertwined lives of Annalaura, John, Alex, and Eula can push that agenda forward.

Read more of the conversation between Zetta and Francine on Omnivoracious, the Amazon books blog.

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Reviews

Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2010-08-22
Summary: "Page-turner about the hardest choices..."

This book was remarkable in that it puts a spin on the age-old tale of abuse of power and the ramifications of this abuse. Not sure I loved it, could be a bit maudlin and I'll be needing a frivolous read after such a heady story, but a nonetheless outstanding piece of historical literature where every character is flawed to the point of culpability.

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Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2010-08-17
Summary: "well written"

I enjoyed this book very much, it was my first Kindle novel,probably the fastest novel I've ever read through,couldn't wait to pick it up, could be partly because of the new Kindle!!!I will watch for others by her!

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-08-11
Summary: "Female strength despite horrifying conditions"

There have been so many books and movies a la "The Color Purple," that demonstrate the strength of women both black and white facing adverse conditions that you might assume that this is just one more. You would be wrong. Francine Thomas Edward's depiction of the condition of women in the early 1900's is mind opening. Of course we knew that women were oppressed. Of course we knew that freeing the slaves did not make African Americans free. But the raw reality of the place of women at this time in our history and in the rural south ( it is, after all, set in Tennessee for a reason) is shocking. Ms Edward pulls no punches, lets out all the stops in describing the bare fact of oppression and yes, abuse. The truth is that the lives of the freed slaves were not much better in the early 1900's than they were under slavery. And the lives led by the white women are really not much better than those of their black counterparts. The enslavement of all women continued long after the emancipation proclamation. But what we see in this book is a glimmer of hope for a different world. We see compelling multi-dimensional characters who grow rather than change abruptly and who show surprising heroics under frightening circumstances. The women are heroic in a quiet, steadfast way--by fighting back in the only way they know how--by making their own choices when these choices seem non-existent. Alex, the landowner in love with Annalaura, his black tenant; John, Annalaura's frequently absent husband; Eula, Alex's wife whose farm journal reveals more to her than numbers; and Annalaura , a victim but yet not, all reveal depths of character and quiet heroism that haunts the reader long after finishing this book. Thought-provoking, surprising (you may think you know the ending but you don't) and suspenseful, you will not be able to put this book down. And you will be recommending this book to your friends for a long time to come.

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Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2010-08-03
Summary: "It will make you think...."

It's a page turner. If you are a woman and a mother, this book will bring so many moral issues to your heart and brain that you'll have a hard time sleeping. You can't but help but ask "what would I do?" You'll turn the pages in sadness, confusion, outrage, and hope. It's a really wonderfully provoking story.

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Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2010-07-29
Summary: "Stark Reminder of Slavery in the Post-Slavery Era"

Francine Thomas Howard should be congratulated for reminding us about the existence of slavery in the post-slavery era. The story begins with a description of Annalaura Welles and her four small children. Annalaura's husband, John, had suddenly left his family before the tobacco crop harvesting had been completed. He took with him most of the family's funds and food. Annalaura and her young children had to subsist on soup made from water and dandelions while spending their days working in the hot sun. The owner of the farm, Alex, presents Annalaura with the "choice" of becoming his mistress and receiving food and clothes for her children or leaving the farm with nothing.

As Ms. Howard's novel unfolds, the sad plight of African Americans as well as white women unfolds. Annalura's husband, John, beats her when he returns from his journey because of her "choice" to sleep with another man. Annalaura has no recourse from John and surely had no option with Alex. Alex's wife, Eula Mae, had a roof over her head and food in her stomach, but she had little else. When she learned of Alex's infidelity, she was supposed to not mention it again and continue living in harmony with him. The highlight of her life to that point had been keeping a journal of provisions in the house.

I highly recommend reading this book because Ms. Howard's words describe an era that is difficult to otherwise fully appreciate.