Story for the Week
When I was in college in the mid-’80s, I had the opportunity to go on a mission trip with our campus ministry program to Tunica County in Mississippi. In preparation for the trip, we all were required to take the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (it was called a personality survey back then), and I’m not talking about a quick sample test that you might be able to find on the internet. All of our tests were completed privately, submitted and professionally interpreted, and sent back with full results before we could be approved to go on the trip. (I was—and still am—INTJ if you’re curious.) It didn’t matter that we wanted to go. It mattered that we would be able to handle it emotionally and psychologically.
We were told by our Director of Campus Ministry to be prepared for the prejudice and the racism, that we would be treated differently just because we were there to help the black community. You hear the phrase “southern hospitality,” which I have experienced in my life, but I didn’t then. When we went into the stores to buy supplies, people didn’t talk to us. We could see them watching us, but no one said a word.
Based on 1980 census data, Tunica County was the poorest county in the poorest state with the lowest per capita income in the country and the highest percentage of people living in poverty. We were helping people who lived along Sugar Ditch Alley. They lived in shacks with walls made, in spots, of corrugated cardboard. They didn’t have indoor toilets, so they dumped their waste in Sugar Ditch, which residents called “Shit Ditch,” for obvious reasons.
I vividly remember a woman I helped during the trip. Her name was Elizabeth. She was elderly and in a wheelchair and needed help cleaning her home. I spent a day with her, a day during which I saw the largest cockroach I have ever seen in my life, but also a day that permanently imprinted on me. I couldn’t believe that we as a nation could allow people to live in such squalor. And I do mean “allow.” They certainly didn’t choose to live that way. The blacks were the majority in terms of population, but they were definitely the minority in wealth. Despite everything they had working against them, what was most extraordinary to me was their immense faith, the certainty that they would have eternal wealth with God. It is an experience that I have never forgotten.
The demographics in Tunica County haven’t changed much. Back then, 72% of the population was black, and it’s still almost 70% today. There are still a large number of people who live in poverty. Elizabeth? She was eventually moved into a senior living facility that was built to replace the “homes” along Sugar Ditch, and I have no doubt that she found her place in Heaven.
As a nation, we still have a long way to go in terms of race relations, but if we could all see one another like the main characters in this novel, the world might be a very different place.
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5 Stars for Big Lies in a Small Town by Diane Chamberlain
394 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication Date: January 14, 2020
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press.
Publisher’s Description
North Carolina, 2018: Morgan Christopher’s life has been derailed. Taking the fall for a crime she did not commit, she finds herself serving a three-year stint in the North Carolina Women’s Correctional Center. Her dream of a career in art is put on hold—until a mysterious visitor makes her an offer that will see her released immediately. Her assignment: restore an old post office mural in a sleepy southern town. Morgan knows nothing about art restoration, but desperate to leave prison, she accepts. What she finds under the layers of grime is a painting that tells the story of madness, violence, and a conspiracy of small town secrets.
North Carolina, 1940: Anna Dale, an artist from New Jersey, wins a national contest to paint a mural for the post office in Edenton, North Carolina. Alone in the world and desperate for work, she accepts. But what she doesn’t expect is to find herself immersed in a town where prejudices run deep, where people are hiding secrets behind closed doors, and where the price of being different might just end in murder.
What happened to Anna Dale? Are the clues hidden in the decrepit mural? Can Morgan overcome her own demons to discover what exists beneath the layers of lies?
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Main Characters:
- Morgan – a white artist in her early 20s, being released early from a prison sentence in North Carolina in exchange for agreeing to restore a mural for a gallery opening at the request of Jesse Jameson Williams.
- Jesse – a renowned black artist who spent the last 25 years of his life helping mostly African American artists who he viewed as heading down the wrong path.
- Lisa – Jesse’s daughter, a real estate agent tasked through Jesse’s will with hiring Morgan to restore a mural in time for a gallery opening.
- Anna – a white artist selected in 1940 to paint a mural for the post office in Edenton, NC, as part of a national contest; her mural is the one that Morgan is hired to restore.
I can’t believe that I am just now discovering Diane Chamberlain. Big Lies in a Small Town is my first by this prolific author, and it will definitely not be my last. Told from the two points of view of Morgan in 2018 and Anna in 1940, this story captured me from the very beginning.
Edenton, North Carolina, is your classic small town, where everyone is up in everybody else’s business and everyone has their secrets. The characters have so much depth, and the author did such a great job placing the reader in the town. The chapters are short, so it makes it feel like you’re getting through the book quickly, but the dialogue and the descriptions give you that slow southern small-town vibe. And I loved how everything came together at the end.
This was truly an amazing journey worth taking. You won’t be disappointed.
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