Black April

By Julia Peterkin

Big Sue is the cook at the Big House. She only works a few months a year as the owner just comes during hunting season. Nevertheless, Big Sue feels like she needs some help. So she gets a boy to help out, a boy named Breeze. Breeze has a lot to learn and when he makes a mistake Big Sue gives him a whipping. Breeze misses his mom but he is fascinated by the people and the doings of his new community. One of the people he is fascinated by is April. Despite his feminine name, April is a man and he is the foreman on the plantation and possibly Breeze's father, though he never admits it to Breeze. He is a good foreman and is respected by the men who work under him. April likes the ladies, despite being married. One of the ladies he likes is Big Sue. Big Sue and April's wife get into a fight and Big Sue hits the wife so hard she dies. April has enemies and one of his enemies puts a conjure on April and he becomes very ill.

Although I enjoyed Scarlet Sister Mary and Green Thursday I didn't like this story as well. It is mostly about the boy Breeze, but towards the end, the story switches to April. It makes for a rather disjointed tale. The author introduces a new character towards the end of the novel, Joy, but doesn't tell us much about her. She suddenly marries her to April and then April shortly becomes ill and it all seems contrived. This story just doesn't flow as well as the other two books did. Still, it is enjoyable reading about these people, although I kept hoping someone would give Big Sue a boot in the butt.

Green Thursday

By Julia Peterkin

After reading and enjoying Scarlet Sister Mary I decided to read the other two books of Peterkin's available at the local library. Green Thursday was Peterkin's first book, published in 1924. It is set in the same South Carolina low country and is also a story featuring the Gullah people she knew so well.
Green Thursday, also called Maundy Thursday, is the day before Good Friday, and was the day Jesus celebrated the Last Supper before his crucifixion. It used to be considered a holy day, a day when a person did not work, like Sunday. But Killdee has a problem: the weeds are taking over in his farm fields. He fears if he doesn't keep after the weeds, he will lose his crop. So even though it is a holy day, Killdee hitches up his mule and plows up the weeds. He takes a break for lunch and puts his old mule, Mike, in the shed with some corn to munch on. But before too long, Mike is down on the ground, suffering from colic. Killdee rushes out to tend to Mike only to hear his wife's frantic cries. Their toddler, Little Rose, has fallen into the fire! The baby is so badly burned she soon dies. Killdee feels guilty, afraid that his disrespect for the holy day has brought the wrath of God down on his family. Yet he wonders why God would smite an innocent baby instead of the guilty one, Killdee himself.

The small book follows the lives of Killdee, his wife Rose and Missie, a girl Killdee got to help Rose take care of their new son. Like Scarlet Sister Mary it is a fascinating look at life as it used to be lived not so long ago.
Sometimes the dialect is a bit confusing, but with a little effort, it is a book that is well worth reading.

Scarlet Sister Mary

By Julia Peterkin

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/.