River of Hidden Dreams (1994) by Connie May Fowler

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

River of Hidden Dreams (1994)

by Connie May Fowler

St. Augustine, Florida

Florida: 9/21

   I will say that I like Florida swamp country, which is a fair bit of Florida- I mean, pretty much all of it. The books set in swampland Florida make me want to seek out non-fiction about the area- I have The Orchid Thief, by Susan Orlean in mind. Fowler's protagonist, Sadie Hunter, is a woman of mixed Native/White/Black ancestry, with a link to the midwestern tribes that were imprisoned and re-educated, with her grandmother being a young woman who is "left behind" with white people- she was also the only child brought to the Florida prison.  The emotions are raw, and the choices are fraught.   River of Hidden Dreams also highlights the ethnic fluidity- up to a point- of northern Florida, which is like a racial paradise compared to the 19th century plantation economy of the delta. 

A Time to Kill (1989) by John Grisham

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

A Time to Kill (1989)

by John Grisham

Mississippi: 19/19

    I'm elated, finishing Louisiana and Mississippi in back-to-back weeks.  Florida is a real (metaphorical) breath of fresh air after reading so much about racial hatred and race-based injustice.  Fitting to end Mississippi with John Grisham, Mississippi best-sellingist author and all-around good guy.  Artistically, it's hard to say much about the man beyond pointing to his status as a perennial best seller.  He doesn't have the literary fictionish touch of Stephen King, and the court room thriller doesn't have the cache of detective fiction or police procedural.  And, with a net worth estimated at 400 million, I doubt he cares, or at least, he doesn't act like someone concerned with his literary legacy.

   A Time to Kill is, of course, his first novel, about a young-ish criminal defense lawyer in small-town Mississippi who is hired to defend an African American accused of gunning down the two white men who raped his ten-year-old daughter.  It's the kind of crime that transcends racial prejudice, a fact which is key to the plot in many different ways.  For me, it was all very "busman's holiday"- reading about my day-to-day concerns of being a criminal defense lawyer.  I think, though, you can tell that Grisham wrote this book without an inkling that he would became a mega seller of popular fiiction.