This is a perfect novel. It’s not only a good story with great complicated compelling characters it really tells us a lot about the way race impacts our relationships with one another, and how that changes in time and place. I’m white and grew up in a small town in the South in the late 70s and 80s and the portrayal of small town white culture in that era is painfully accurate: the overt yet casual racism, the way we saw black people as so foreign and different, dangerous yet cool. We were desegregated but still worlds apart. It’s changing but so slowly it’s almost imperceptible.
Senna’s characters are so well developed, multilayered and complicated but they’re also universal. In my own life’s journey I have met all these characters: white people doing anti-racism work, radical intellectuals who seem to forget about the humanity of their subjects, activists who get carried away by dogma and do the same and liberals who don’t practice what they preach. The almost palpable way this impacts the lives of these two sisters is incredibly moving and unforgettable.
All the above are reasons why a book becomes a classic, it stands out as not just a good read but an important piece of art with something to say about the human experience. I hope it’s on lots of high school reading lists. It’s certainly going to be for me part of my personal cannon of great literature.