First published 2007
In 1970, ten-year-old Tim Tyson hears shocking news from a playmate in Oxford, North Carolina. Henry Marrow, a young black veteran, has been chased from Robert Teel's store and murdered by Teel and his sons in broad daylight. The killing ignites the previously quiet tobacco town. Young activists led by Ben Chavis organize mass protests in the town square while black Vietnam veterans plan what they call military operations. The Ku Klux Klan mobilizes in response. As lawyers battle in the courthouse that summer, arsonists torch tobacco warehouses and flames consume large sections of Oxford. Tim's father, pastor of the all-white Methodist church, urges his congregation toward racial reconciliation, but the family is ultimately forced to leave town. Years later, historian Tim Tyson returns to Oxford to confront both the killers and the black radicals who burned the town, seeking to understand the violence that shaped his childhood and changed his family forever.
Genres: civil-war, historical-fiction, 20th-century, social-issues, african-american-historical-fiction, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, fish-out-of-water, social-commentary
Setting: North Carolina, Oxford
Period: 1970
368 pages · Kindle Edition · Broadway Books
Content warnings: racism, violence