Karla M. Jay

First, I must give a caution here. Due to the covered time period 1920’s being a very shameful time in our country’s history there maybe parts to this story that are very painful to read. I know this was a very emotional read for me and maybe for you. Despite the difficulty I urge you to read this book. It is beautifully written and even the most difficult parts are only addressed as necessary to tell the story. Each scene is handled sensitively, there is no sensationalism here. Some of the covered topics are racism, sexism, the kkk, the wkkk, baby farms and chain gangs.
It was a time when kindness was often only extended to those similar to oneself and Justice was only available if you were white, wealthy and in the south, Protestant. To avoid ruining the book for anyone I will not go further then telling you a little bit about the narrators of the story.
Willow is our female protagonist. She has been mute since birth but hears well and can read and write and utilizes a sign language she and her mother created. After her brother dies at birth and her mother suffers complications she is tasked with leaving the mountain they live on to go and get the preacher. Trouble finds Willow along the way and it is her struggle to get home that her part of the story centers on.
Brier is Willows’ brother. He left home 15 months prior to the start of our story. He rode the rails for a time going from job to job. He is now serving time on a chain gang making turpentine in the woods. He has 4 months left on his sentence and is a trustee. He avoids anything that will jeopardize his freedom. Oh, his crime was not having at least a dollar in his pocket.
Ardith is a well to do wife and mother. She is very active in several social clubs, charity work and the WKKK. She is very proud of all her activities and her standing in the community is of utmost concern. She uses lies and manipulation to get out of situations, mostly of her own creation. Is she an evil bigot or just a product of her time?
This book is flawless. The author has done a great job evoking time and place. Characters are fully fleshed out and act according to the time period.
This book is strongly suggested for those who love accurate, well plotted and detailed Historical Fiction.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher, Books Go Social and Netgalley. This fact in no way influenced my review.… (mehr)

Not as impressed by this as most readers. There are three stories that kind of intertwine. First, the main story is about an SS officer horrified by the Nazi atrocities, who sends information to a pastor friend in the U.S. before assuming the identity of a German soldier to reach the U.S. to get help. He faces many obstacles along the way, initially from fellow countrymen and then by U.S. law enforcement. Second, a Jewish mother and son in the Netherlands trying to escape the Nazi's and reunite with the husband/father are captured and passed through various work camps. A very common story. Third, the story of a German family in Pennsylvania, who are harassed by the locals, and when the patriarch is falsely arrested for being a spy, the son goes along, eventually ending up with the family being deported back to Germany, after a harrowing experience interred on Ellis Island, where they meet the pastor. I did not connect with the characters, except for the pastor. 2.5 stars, rounded up.… (mehr)

It Happened in Silence by Karla M. Jay

The book is set around 1921 in the south. We follow three lead characters throughout the book: Willow Stewart, a fifteen year old mute girl; Briar Stewart, Willow's twenty-one year old brother, who has been out on his own for about a year, working his way across the country; and Mrs. Ardith Dobbs, an evil woman involved with WKKK, Women's Klu Klux Klan organization.
,
Willow has been sent down from her homeplace at Stewart Mountain in the Appalachian Mountains to the nearest town with a preacher, to bring him back to perform her baby brother's funeral service. She gets sidetracked through no fault of her own, and eventually runs into her oldest brother Briar.

Briar Stewart has been pressed into a chain gang, for having less than $1.00 in his pocket, while in town. He has eventually worked up to the position of Trustee, where he is allowed more freedoms, than a regular inmate. He is working in a lumber camp, under a sadistic guard named Taggert.

Mrs. Ardith Dobbs is the wife of a prominent advertising executive in Marietta, Georgia. She has a five year old son and is also very pregnant. Ardith thinks that she's too good for everyone around her and smarter than everyone. She has dealings with an unscrupulous baby farm, as she attempts to pass off more lies. She's always getting into horrible scrapes that are very damaging to those around her, but she barely manages to lie her way through them. One day, it all catches up to her. She is a member and the treasurer for WKKK, Women's Klu Klux Klan.

The Stewart siblings come together at Ardith's home as Ardith's lies are catching up to her and threatening everything she holds dear.

The book is dedicated to all those who do and have suffered unspeakable horrors because of the small mindedness of the society around them.

This time in our history is very shameful, for the way others are treated, because when you get down to the basics of life, all people are the same color once you peel back their skin.

Many thanks to IBPA Publishing and NetGalley for the complimentary copy, I was under no obligation to post a review.… (mehr)

This historical novel, set in Georgia in 1921, has three first-person narrators.

Fifteen-year-old Willow Stewart is mute and so communicates by writing. She leaves her Appalachian homestead tasked with finding a preacher to bury her baby brother but she also wants to find her oldest brother Briar to convince him to come home. Thus begins a journey that takes her much further than planned with more than one misadventure. The second narrator is twenty-year-old Briar Stewart. Serving a sentence in penal servitude, he wants to do nothing to jeopardize his freedom in four months. When he encounters an immigrant boy in dire straits, he risks that freedom by trying to help. Ardith Dobbs, the wife of a wealthy businessman, is the third narrator. Though she hides secrets about her past, she is proud of and open about her involvement with an organization, the Women of the Ku Klux Klan (WKKK). Eventually events bring together these three characters.

There is considerable suspense, especially concerning Willow. She encounters unscrupulous people and people who claim to have her best interests in mind but disregard her wishes. More than once she is in considerable danger. Briar also finds himself in danger several times because Taggert, the work gang supervisor, is a cruel and unpredictable person who rules the workers with an iron fist.

What I found most interesting is the information about the Women of the Ku Klux Klan. I had not known about this group which held many of the same political and social ideas of the KKK. The women of the WKKK in the novel support the KKK by reporting behaviour that is at odds with their extreme racist and intolerant views. Ardith repeats the vow she took to become a member: “I pay attention. I report. . . . We are against northerners, blacks, Jews, schoolteachers, Catholics, Mormons, labor radicals, immigrants, bootleggers, theatre owners, dance hall operators, and feminists.”

Some of Ardith’s beliefs will make the reader more than a bit uncomfortable, and that’s the point. She believes that “the excessive mortality rates in the American Negro were not due to their daily conditions of life but was an inherent racial trait” and “Colored gals can tolerate pain better than white women. I mean, everyone knows that.” She celebrates the unjust laws which punish a white woman for miscegenation: “Thanks to the civilized laws of our land, her mother is confined to an insane asylum in Virginia for having relations with a blackie.” Though a black woman is raped by a white man, Ardith blames the woman, asserting that she is sexually promiscuous.

Willow is the most engaging character. Because she is mute, people tend to underestimate her intelligence. She is a kind person whose love of family motivates her. Briar, despite his missteps in life and his “protective shell,” is much like his sister. Other characters, however, are not realistic; they tend to be totally good or totally evil. Taggart and Ardith, for example, seem to have no redeeming qualities, whereas Ilya has nary a flaw.

There are several examples of plot contrivance. There are coincidences where characters come together at convenient times; several characters manage to make unlikely escapes; and there is a deus ex machina rescue. The ending also stretches credulity. Are we to take Taggert’s fate seriously? And was the suggestion of romance really needed?

In terms of style, it is the many country comparisons or “corny sayings” that stand out: “as heartless as a chicken gizzard” and “Prettier than a mess of fried catfish” and “She was the freshness in the air after a fast-moving rainstorm. The sugar in the rhubarb pie” and “crazier than an outhouse fly” and “useless as the H in ghost.”

In the Author’s Note, there are explanatory notes and non-fiction reading suggestions for subjects which appear in the novel: the WKKK, baby farms, chain gangs, and hobos. It is obvious that the author did considerable research and her intention to give voice to those “silenced through fear, injustice, or discrimination” is admirable, but plot contrivance and unrealistic characterization weaken the quality of the book.

Note: I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).… (mehr)