Chinaberry Summer

harrisgreen — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 20:12:09 +0000

Riverton radio station WRVR says that 1947 is the hottest summer on record, but Crayton Turner doesn’t need the station to tell him. His cotton shirt is soaked in sweat and his breathing is heavy. He is pedaling his Popsicle cart as hard as he can through a new neighborhood. He wants to catch the carpenters before quitting time at 4:00. Through sweat stung eyes he catches a glimpse of a young white woman undressing in her bedroom. For a second or two he’s aroused but then he’s chilled by the wet shirt clinging to his black skin when he notices a gray, mud-spattered ’39 Ford coming toward him, slowly.

This chapter about an ugly racial incident is balanced by another in which an old white spinster befriends a young, black professor whose car breaks down in front of her antebellum home. In another chapter the white county school superintendent struggles with the political implications but finally agrees to let his black ”maid” Ruthelle borrow the family wedding gown for her daughter’s wedding. These racial incidents are among the many lessons learned that summer by nine- and ten-year old white boys who want a summer free from teacher demands but learn that Life is the most demanding teacher of all.

Chinaberry Summer: Riverton, Alabama 1947 is available at www.authorhouse.com where a summary of the book, an author biography, and sample pages can be read. The novel was inspired by the author’s childhood in Montgomery, Alabama.

Harris Green, author

Flat Rock Skipping

Chinaberry Summer