cover image QUAKERTOWN

QUAKERTOWN

Lee Martin, . . Dutton, $23.95 (320pp) ISBN 978-0-525-94583-3

Set in the neighborhood of Quakertown in a north Texas city in the 1920s, Martin's first novel (after a short story collection, The Least You Need to Know, and a memoir, From Our House) perfectly captures the quiet cicada hum of everyday life in a sleepy Southern community—as well as the racial tension simmering beneath the surface. "Little" Washington Jones is a gardener of uncommon skill, able to make nearly anything grow in Denton's dry soil. What Little can't do is mend his broken town, or save his daughter, Camellia, from the heartbreak that will result from her love for the banker's son, Kizer Bell. When Little's employer, Andrew Bell, asks him to help smooth the division of Quakertown into white and black neighborhoods, Little doesn't know what to think. But Mr. Bell is a trustworthy man, and Little knows that the town will be segregated with or without him—so he agrees to act as a go-between to the black community, for which he'll receive the job of caretaker for the new city garden and keep his place in the white neighborhood. But as the town divides, ugly feelings erupt, and it soon becomes clear that while Little may not lose his house, he will lose his home. For Martin, the genius is in the details—a silver bead rolling across the floor, the clink of teacups rattling in the memory, the stretch of a man's neck as he leans away—and the narrative acquires a fine, lace-like quality. While the characters fill somewhat basic roles, they evade stereotype by being finely drawn and compassionately understood. Unfortunately, Martin's light hand fails him toward the end, resulting in a too pat conclusion, but his gently melancholy style strikes a fine balance between literary fiction and accessible, emotion-driven storytelling. (June 25)