The Twelve-Mile Straight (2017) by Eleanor Henderson

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

The Twelve-Mile Straight (2017)

 by Eleanor Henderson

Ben Hill County, Georgia

Georgia: 23/24

    All things being equal I'll always prefer a historical novel or whatever merit to a contemporary work of fiction within the precincts of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project.  Even if I don't care for the novel, I frequently learn about the history, particularly in the rural and neglected (from a literary perspective) portions of the country.  In rural Georgia I'm reading about the intertwined system of turpentine camps and liquor stills- first, an area will be a turpentine camp and then, after the environment is degraded, you use the same area for a liquor still.  The Twelve-Mile Straight, set in the 1930's, revolves around the life of a rural producer of still liquor and his daughter, a whore.  When the daughter is impregnated by the grandson of the local bigwig, Dad takes the opportunity to conceal the paternity of the child of his African American servant (him.)

  This leads to a series of very unfortunate events that involves murder, small-town sensationalism and of course, race.  I listened to the Audiobook, it took forever.

Criminal Trespass (1985) by Helen Hudson

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Criminal Trespass (1985)

by Helen Hudson

Simms Quarter, Alabama

Alabama: 6/18

  Northern Alabama is the biggest geographic blank spot on the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America map.  It doesn't have anything to do with a lack of potential titles- Huntsville, Alabama, the home of NASA is there, surely you could pick something that happened there.  Also, Muscle Shoals, home of a famous recording studio and well known "sound" has inspired at least a half dozen novels.  

  Criminal Trespass is that most suspect of categories, a book with a black protagonist written by a white woman.   I just read a book like this near the end of the Georgia chapter, Strange Fruit, by Lillian Smith.  However, Strange Fruit was published in 1944.  Criminal Trespass, on the other hand, was published in 1985.   It was also reviewed in the New York Times without a mention of the awkwardness of the author/protagonist relationship.  Not something that would be tolerated in 2025, a fact obviously known by editor Susan Straight, but here we are.  It's like the subject matter is extraordinary either, there are at least a dozen other books in this section of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project and another dozen in the last chapter.

Net of Jewels (1992) by Ellen Gilchrist

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Net of Jewels (1992)

by Ellen Gilchrist

Dunleith, Alabama

Alabama: 5/18

   Ellen Gilchrist figuratively burst upon the national literary scene from an unlikely source: the world of university publishing (her first publisher was the University of Arkansas press).  She solidified her national reputation in 1984, when she won the National Book Award (which had briefly been renamed the American Book Award) for her short-story collection, Victory Over Tokyo.  That was enough to secure the notice of the New York Times for the rest of her career, though the reviews are frequently dismissive and condescending towards her preferred subject matter:  the lost and winsome damsels of the mid 20th century landed gentry.   

  If she had written twenty years later, she would likely be known as a practitioner of "auto-fiction"- honestly, the tone of this book mostly reminded me of the warts-and-all confessional style of Karl Ove Knausgård and his "My Struggle" series.   The frequent and prolific abuse of prescription medication- the south of that period must have been the epicenter for speed/diet pills being prescribed for young women, goes unanalyzed in the book, and in the criticism, which I found refreshing.  In fact, I'd rate Gilchrist, who is badly out of fashion, a minor discovery within the context of this project.  Not sure I'd tackle another Gilchrist title, but I wouldn't rule it out.