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978-1-58838-142-2
1-58838-142-0
$25.95 hardcover
6 X 9
320 pages
NewSouth Books
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There are times when
powerful fiction can bring to life the tragic, troubled past in ways
that factual histories cannot. Kenneth Robbins has written just that
sort of novel. His compelling story reminds us that never should we
forget the brutality that rocked our region and bathed it in the blood
of innocents four decades ago. In helping us remember, he helps us hope
that, in the word of the anthem, we shall overcome--some day.
—John Seigenthaler, Founder, The First Amendment Center
No matter what we think of history, and I am a big fan of history,
the best of history is told through stories. All the great philosophers,
all the great seers use stories. Kenneth Robbins is learning from the
very best. City of Churches brings the story to life. A great
effort. A rewarding story.
—Nikki Giovanni
Danger crackles through Ken Robbins’s City of Churches like
sudden lightning at a summer outing . . . While the subject is Black
versus White, the whole spectrum of humanity is represented in amazingly
compassionate portraits of two families caught in the storm of bigotry,
hatred, betrayal, and bloodshed. All the familiar elements of that
terrible year in that sad place are in the book. Some of the major
players are present or implied but unnamed, the better to focus on what
Robbins clearly sees as the heart of the tragedy, the ordinary folk who
were compelled to do the right thing for bad reasons or the wrong thing
for good reasons. Robbins manages to keep the reader off balance while
at the same time conveying the sense of tragic inevitability. Dialog
rings with authenticity and stirs sympathy for both major and minor
characters. We are propelled forward to discover their fates, gripped by
the rapid pace of events, delighted or dismayed by what a turn of the
page may bring. Robbins does not settle for easy endings or pat
solutions: the demon of racism is shown to be just as alive and active
now as ever. The deeply rooted potential for violence is everywhere . .
. In the light of such ingrained bigotry, Robbins offers the prayer of
Roosevelt Mears’s son Rider, in 1993 a minister in his home-town
church: “Save each and every sinner you see from the chosen path of
evil.”—Ron Robinson, author of Thunder Dreamer and Diamond
Trump
Robbins deftly fictionalizes the fight for racial equality,
dramatizing courageous demonstrations and vicious retaliations, and
setting in motion a compelling cast of diverse characters who embody
every fear, doubt, and conviction aroused by these momentous changes.
--Donna Seaman, Booklist
Travel in someone else's skin for a couple of hours. Read this book
and go back in time to find out why, to this very day, African-Americans
and white Americans still dance around one another, some looking for
evidence of inferiority, others looking for friendship and healing.
Tales like this can help, can even make you desire the healing process.
--Jim Reed, First Draft
In an unnamed Southern city in the hot summer of 1963, four girls died
in a church bombing, a white merchant who impulsively took down the Jim
Crow signs in his store was harassed by segregationists, and a black
handyman and a white cop were killed when a stick of dynamite
inexplicably exploded between them. Thirty years later, the sons of the
two murdered men—one now a minister, the other a writer— return to
the city of their birth seeking clues to the fathers who were literally
blown from their young lives. Their journeys, and that of their fathers
before them, are told in chapters that alternate between 1963 and 1993.
The novel telling these interwoven stories is a compelling examination
of race and human relations, the terrible cost of the sins of the past,
and the promise of racial healing.
about the author
Kenneth Robbins
has published four novels and four plays. His first novel, Buttermilk
Bottoms, received the 1986 Toni Morrison Prize and the AWP Novel
Award. He is Director of the School of Performing Arts at
Louisiana Tech University.
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