Dessa Rose (1986) by Sherley Anne Williams

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Dessa Rose (1986)

by Sherley Anne Williams

Marengo County, Alabama

Alabama: 7/18

  Dessa Rose was a genuine surprise from the Alabama chapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project, a transgressive work of fiction about a white plantation wife and a band of escaped slaves she shelters- set in the 1830's.  It is the first book set in the 19th century in the South which depicts a sexual relationship between a male slave and a female mistress- which- if you just kind of described the outlines of the culture in this part of the country, you would think relationships between black men and white women would be, whatever else, an interesting subject for literary fiction.  But it is not, and I think that is because, unlike relationships between white men and black women, relationships between black men and white women were punishable by immediate extrajudicial murder.

  I'd like to say that this idea is either a myth or exaggeration, but the essential truth of this situation is revealed in cases like the murder of Emmett Till, an African American murdered for allegedly cat-calling a white woman in public.  I imagine there are still parts of Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia where a black man/white woman couple would face trouble.  The relationship depicted here is a casual one, but the utter absence of any fully developed relationships between black men and white women across Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana is enough to give one pause.  Really?  Not a single novel written on the subject.  Perhaps there is a work of science fiction out there that covers such a relationship in an alternate universe.