For Seller

By: Lillian Brummet

Fascinating from the start, The Sweet Shade of a Chinaberry
Tree, by Janice Parrish, is certainly hard to classify. A
creative fiction based on the author’s own experiences while
growing up in Southern States in the tumultuous 1960’s - a
time of great change for America - could also be classified
as an inter-racial romance or possibly a drama.

The Sweet Shade of a Chinaberry Tree involves multicultural
and social issues, true young love, the relationship between
the main character and her parents and so much more. The
setting is based in Alabama, USA during the summer of
1963.

The novel follows 19-year-old Gaynell McGowan from the
moment she returns to her home town during a summer
break from college where she had learned all kinds of novel
ideas that would forever alter her view of the people she
once believed in and knew so well. Failing to fully complete
her college course, Gaynell is assigned a paper, which lead
her into the most tender and truest of loves anyone could
ever experience. Readers will thrive on the thrilling,
secretive, inter-racial romance and the incredible sacrifice
Parrish’s characters endure.

A town, stubborn in their ways, is afraid of racial change and
this fear empowers a threat so great that it has begun to rip
the town apart and shatter families. The small town is facing
the challenge of having the first school in Alabama become
integrated with black students. Under orders from the
government, bigoted and heartless behavior toward a set of
people who just happen to have a darker skin begins to tear
the town apart. So-called “normal, god-fearing” individuals
strengthen their resistance and suppression, while a few
individuals turn to hateful, murderous, cross-burning tactics.

My respect for the author grew when I read her statement “In
Gaynell McGowan, I have found the voice to express the
inhumanity we Southerners covered with good manners
and lace tablecloths.”

So many aspects of this time period and radical change are
covered in her fantastic array of characters that I could not
possibly do it justice in this book review. All that I can say is
that this book has found a spot on my shelves indefinitely
and the characters are locked in my mind forever. While I did
not spend time in the Southern US, I did grow up around
those that struggled with this issue and feel the way this
author portrayed the people could not have been more
realistic or more heart-felt.

The Sweet Shade of a Chinaberry Tree would be an
excellent historical fiction movie not just because of the first
hand experience, but also due to the excellent research the
author put in to get the right feel for this dramatic period.

ISBN#: 0-7599-4807-0
Author: Janice Ward Parrish
Publisher: Hard Shell Word Factory
Published: 2006

~ Book Reviewer: Lillian Brummet - Co-author of the book
Trash Talk, a guide for anyone concerned about his or her
impact on the environment - Author of Towards
Understanding, a collection of poetry.
(http://www.sunshinecable.com/~drumit)