Pale: A Novel, by Edward A. Farmer (2020)
In 1966, Bernice, a young Black woman whose husband has left her, moved to be closer to her brother, Floyd, who worked in the field at the Kern cotton plantation in Mississippi. Bernice would work in the plantation house with another Black servant, Silva. At the house, they would tend to old Mister and his younger, but vindictive wife, Missus. Neither the old Mister nor his wife seem to care much for each other, or anyone else, for that matter. Years ago, they lost their young daughter, Elizabeth, an event from which Missus never recovered.
Silva was a widow with two young sons. One summer, Silva’s sons, Jesse and Fletcher, were hired to work in the field picking cotton. Missus threw a tantrum when she saw Fletcher and forbid him from working on the property. She sought out Jesse, however, and began a dangerous flirtation with him. She convinced Jesse to write her love letters and instructed him what to write. Bernice tried to warn Jesse, but Missus held a power over him. And she was trying to get back at her husband, who fathered Fletcher.
Fletcher had plans to go leave Mississippi and obtain an education. After his first year at school, Missus used the letters Jesse had written to blackmail him into returning to the plantation to work as a field hand. She insists that being on the plantation is his home and where he belongs.
Dark and twisted secrets hold the servants and owners to the land.
Read: September 3, 2020
4 Stars
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