The Wind Done Gone (2001) by Alice Randall

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Wind Done Gone (2001)

by Alice Randall

Clayton County, Georgia

Georgia: 20/23

   I'm looking forward to closing out Georgia and the other states in this chapter- so much poverty, racism and abuse between family members. The more titles I read from this portion of the United States, the more aware I am of the role sexual violence very explicitly played in the social development of this state. One theme that recurs so frequently in this chapter that it has become repetitive is the ability of a white man to force a black woman to have sex with him without her consent.  There is also a less frequent but just as strongly expressed principle that any proof of sex between a white woman and a black man is certain to result in the extra-judicial torture and murder of SOME perceived offender- not necessarily the right person.

  The Wind Done Gone is a riff on Gone With the Wind- a narrative told from the perspective of Scarlett O'Hara's mixed-race sister.   Much of it takes place in the heady atmosphere of Reconstruction Washington DC, a period when the white political class was disenfranchised and a temporary political class, including African American and mixed-race people, replaced them in the national government.

   It is described as a parody/satire, but if that is the case, I didn't get it.  To me it read as a comic novel about the nuances of racial identity in reconstruction era America.