Helpful Score: 1
The novel essentially tells the story of two different characters, Del Reese, a womanizing wanderer who ends up in a turpentine camp after a brush with death, which changes him, and who is himself subjected to some of the harsh treatment dealt out to the other workers in the camp, most of whom are black. The book does a good job of describing conditions in such a camp, which was essentially a plantation, where workers were brutally and occasionally fatally punished for not making quota or for the most minor infractions with unimaginable brutality, including being locked in a sweatbox, whipped, and hunted down with dogs, should they have the audacity to quit and attempt to leave. Seventy years after slavery, workers during this period were essentially considered as such, property of the turpentine "plantation," locked into perpetual bondage to the company store, financially, if not legally. Del finds out the hard way that working with this crew subjects him to exactly the same treatment by the brutal overseer whose word is law, apparently without the knowledge of the actual company owner.
Rae Lynn, the second character, doesn't have it much better. After the untimely death of her husband, having nowhere else to go, after having been blackmailed by another despicable character who treats other human beings like pieces of property, or meat, she attempts to essentially impersonate her husband and gets a job in the turpentine camp, where she is likewise subjected to brutal treatment at the hands of a cruel foreman, until they find out her secret. Abuse of women is apparently nothing out of the ordinary here: her savior, Cornelia, is also brutalized, by her vicious husband who tortures her.
I won't give away the ending, but this isn't a cheery novel in general: perhaps poignant is the best way to describe it. The characters overcome their obstacles eventually, but I think the real value of the book is to make readers appreciate what their ancestors really did go through, during this period and others, when survival was often in doubt. The story is an interesting one, and you will definitely learn something, but it often lags in places. Condensing it and tightening up the prose would have made it better. That said, however, these types of books, depressing though they may be at times, does make me appreciate my ancestors, some of whom didn't have it much better than what is depicted here, growing up in the rural south, often being on the move, going from place to place in search of work to feed an ever-growing family. It makes our modern "depression," and our modern problems, seem trivial in comparison.
Rae Lynn, the second character, doesn't have it much better. After the untimely death of her husband, having nowhere else to go, after having been blackmailed by another despicable character who treats other human beings like pieces of property, or meat, she attempts to essentially impersonate her husband and gets a job in the turpentine camp, where she is likewise subjected to brutal treatment at the hands of a cruel foreman, until they find out her secret. Abuse of women is apparently nothing out of the ordinary here: her savior, Cornelia, is also brutalized, by her vicious husband who tortures her.
I won't give away the ending, but this isn't a cheery novel in general: perhaps poignant is the best way to describe it. The characters overcome their obstacles eventually, but I think the real value of the book is to make readers appreciate what their ancestors really did go through, during this period and others, when survival was often in doubt. The story is an interesting one, and you will definitely learn something, but it often lags in places. Condensing it and tightening up the prose would have made it better. That said, however, these types of books, depressing though they may be at times, does make me appreciate my ancestors, some of whom didn't have it much better than what is depicted here, growing up in the rural south, often being on the move, going from place to place in search of work to feed an ever-growing family. It makes our modern "depression," and our modern problems, seem trivial in comparison.
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