Pulitzer Prize winning novel of 1929, Scarlet Sister Mary is the story of young love gone bad. Mary, a young Gullah woman is deeply in love with July Pinesett, a handsome, lively, engaging young scamp. Mary is a good girl, member of Heaven's Gate Church. Heaven's Gate Church has very strict rules about how their members behave, disobeying those rules will result in no longer being a member of the church. After being baptized at age 12, her name was changed from Mary to Sister Mary, or Si May-e in the local dialect. But Mary's passion for July and his charming ways made her forget about the church and its rules. As a result, on their wedding day, Mary was already pregnant, much to the shock and disappointment of Maum Hannah, the woman who raised Mary. The morning of the wedding Mary and Maum Hannah discovered that a rat had been nibbling at Mary's wedding cake, a sign of bad luck. Another sign, that night, after the wedding, July spent the whole evening dancing with Cinder, Mary's rival. Mary got so angry she started dancing by herself, even though she knew dancing was forbidden by the church and would cause her to lose her membership. Talk about the writing on the wall; there was no way this marriage was going to prosper. After their baby is born, July starts to get bored being married and begins to spend his nights away from their home. Scared she is losing him, Mary gets a love charm to use on her husband. But before she has a chance to use it, July takes off with Cinder, leaving Mary alone to fend for herself and the baby, Unex (short for Unexpected). Weeks, then months go by and July doesn't come home. Mary is beside herself, neglecting herself and her little one. Then one day she notices how thin and silent her baby has become and she gets a grip on herself and gets back to normal. But she uses the love charm to attach June, July's brother, to herself. Time passes and Mary takes many lovers and has many children by them. She enjoys her lovers but declares that there isn't a man alive worth shedding a tear over. She claims that if July came back to her in a pine box, not a drop would fall from her eyes. Then after an absence of almost twenty years, July shows up on her doorstep.
I really enjoyed this book. Maum Hannah, Si May-e, Budda Ben are all interesting and charming characters. The Gullah dialect is a bit hard to follow at times, even though the author simplified it to make it understandable for her readers.
One of the best things about the book is the portrait of the daily lives of these recent descendants of slaves. Mary's mother & grandmother were both born on the old plantation which is in ruins by the time of the story. The people live in decrepit shacks, the windows have no window panes, they cook over a fire in the fireplace. Everyone keeps some livestock: chickens, a few goats, maybe a cow. They grow most all their own food and they raise cotton as a cash crop which they pick by hand. No one has electricity in their houses or indoor plumping. Water has to brought in by bucket. It is a amazing look at life stripped to the essentials. Scarlet Sister Mary is a book that is well worth reading.
Another review: https://pulitzernovels.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/1929-scarlet-sister-mary/.
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