Product Description

"White blossoms to frame a black man. I straightened abruptly from the casket. Even in mortis Joe Billy seemed to threaten mobility. A laugh. A curse. Nobody could predict what Joseph William King would do in life. Nor even, apparently, in death."

There are good people and bad on both sides of the tracks that divide Laureate from 'Colored Town'. Our instruction in that hard truth comes as we follow two African-American teens, Cilla Handsom and Joe Billy King, as they endure the backlash resulting from the integration of their segregated school with the all-white school run by Lafayette County's all-white school board. The issue of the education of Laureate's children will expose hatreds on both sides of the color divide. Cilla will emerge from her ordeal carrying scars and grace to become a widely traveled classical musician. Joe Billy will be found hanging from the bars of his cell in a Florida penitentiary. Their moving, intertwined dramas put courage, cowardice, loyalty and betrayal side by side in an eloquent, evocative narrative where the demons and angels of a time and place are portrayed in black and white.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #493910 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 353 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Wimberley revisits the rural north Florida featured in A Tinker's Damn (2000) in this powerful portrayal of a segregated community at the height of the Civil Rights movement. In 1963 Cilla Handsom, a high school junior living in Laureate's "Colored Town," learns that her senior year will be spent at an integrated white school on the other end of town, where fear and racist fury permeate the halls. A brash charmer named Joe Billy King blows into town after robbing a church in Tallahassee and becomes Cilla's first lover. He discovers Cilla's gift for music and enlists the help of a teacher to secure Cilla access to music lessons and instruments. Cilla focuses on her music and her studies, but she and Joe Billy attract the attention of the Klan and are brutally assaulted. In the aftermath, Joe Billy sacrifices himself to protect Cilla. Though the tension lags after Cilla leaves Colored Town, Wimberley's take on the prickly themes of racism and poverty is made memorable by a gripping story line, authentic voice and dead-on dialogue. (Apr.)
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Review
Wimberley paints complex characters against a backdrop of brutally violent racial oppression...[through]truly heartfelt storytelling. -- Kirkus *** Starred Review *** 1 January 2007

Wimberley's (Dead Man's Bay) surprisingly affecting novel ... reveals an authentic glimpse of a moment in history. Recommended. -- Library Journal, Feb 15th 2007

About the Author
Darryl Wimberley is an author and screenwriter who resides with his family in Austin, Texas. He is the author of the Barrett Raines mysteries, "A Rock and a Hard Place" and "Dead Man's Bay", and of a seperate literary work "A Tinker's Damn."

Customer Reviews

An Absolute Page-Turner!
Darryl Wimberley's newest book was a rarity--a chance for one to live a life completely out of one's own experience. The narrative, told in the voice of an African-American woman coming of age in the segregated South of the early 1960's, is completely believeable. The theme, of the risks and rewards of following one's dream, no matter what the sacrifice, hardly allows for such distractions to the reader as work, meals, or sleep until the entire story has been told and savored. If you have not yet discovered Darryl Wimberley's fiction, this is an excellent start. If you have read his other works, you will appreciate how his gift has deepened since his first published work.

Excellent spellbinding story
An absolutely great page turner. Kept me glued to the pages and I was sorry to get to the end. Wimberley knows how to keep the reader interested in the characters that he develops and the story he weaves. Great reading.

OUTSTANDING!
I just finished this extraordinary book, and was totally engrossed in the story line and well developed characters from start to finish. I highly recommend this book, undoubtedly the best book I've read this year.

BRAVO, BRAVO, Darryl Wimberley for a job well done!