BOOKISH FRIDAYS: “HAVE NO SHAME”

Welcome to another Bookish Friday, in which I  share excerpts from books…and connect with other bloggers, who do the same.

Let’s begin the celebration by sharing Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and let’s showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

What better way to spend a Friday!

Today’s featured book is one I purchased a while ago, in May 2014.   Have No Shame, by Melissa Foster, is a story that shows where civil rights and forbidden love collide…

 

 

Beginning:   It was the end of winter 1967, my father was preparin’ the fields for plantin’, the Vietnam War was in full swing, and spring was peekin’ its pretty head around the corner.  The cypress trees stood tall and bare, like sentinels watchin’ over the St. Francis River.   The bugs arrived early, thick and hungry, circlin’ my head like it was a big juicy vein as I walked across the rocks toward the water.

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56:  He held his hand out to help me off the stump.  I took his hand and stood, holdin’ my breath, not knowin’ if I should let go or hold on.  I wanted to hold on.

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Synopsis:   Alison Tillman has called Forrest Town, Arkansas home for the past eighteen years. Her mother’s Blue Bonnet meetings, her father toiling night and day on the family farm, and the division of life between the whites and the blacks are all Alison knows. The winter of 1967, just a few months before marrying her high school sweetheart, Alison finds the body of a black man floating in the river, and she begins to view her existence with new perspective. The oppression and hate of the south, the ugliness she once was able to avert her eyes from, now demands her attention.

When a secretive friendship with a young black man takes an unexpected romantic turn, Alison is forced to choose between her predetermined future, and the dangerous path that her heart yearns for.

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What do you think?  I’ve had this book for quite a while, and as I share the excerpts and the blurb, I am now realizing once again why I bought it in the first place.  The book reminds me of a time, not that long ago, when so much was forbidden.

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