Scottsboro A Novel [Paperback]

Alabama, 1931. A posse stops a freight train and arrests nine black youths, ranging in age from thirteen to nineteen. Their crime: fighting with white boys. Then two white girls, dressed in mens overalls, emerge from another freight car. Though they show no signs of abuse, fast as anyone can say Jim Crow, the cry of rape goes up.The Scottsboro case is the novels core . . . all distilled, with great subtlety and wit, into a story worth retelling and remembering.With a pure sense of storytelling, a deft hand at characterization and a stylish and sensitive use of language, Feldman has created another affecting portrait of the past.Inspired and inspiring. . . . Ruby is a gem of a character, and belongs with the best of William Faulkners, or Alice Walkers, women.Set in the 1930s South, this resonant novel of race and class turns on the awful power of a lie.