Promise takes on the page-turning pacing of a mystery while remaining solidly literary. When Jo finds a baby in her yard, she assumes it is her brother, and the premise is set for this impressive novel. During the storm, both Promise and Jo’s baby brother are lost. Son McNair, Jo’s older brother, raped Dovey’s granddaughter, resulting in a light-skinned baby boy named Promise. The Grand’homme and McNabb families are connected by more than just the intimate laundry that Dovey sorts through weekly-they are also irrevocably linked by a despicable act. In her second novel, Minrose Gwin ( The Queen of Palmyra) harnesses the intensity of the tornado and pieces together a dual narrative of survival.ĭovey Grand’homme is an old African-American washwoman, and Jo McNabb is a white 15-year-old schoolgirl. The stories and folklore surrounding the storm flourished for decades-a woman found a baby in a crepe myrtle, a cow flew upside down, etc. More than 200 people were reported dead, and the hundreds of African-American casualties were not even counted. On Sunday, April 5, 1936, a tornado devastated Tupelo, Mississippi.
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