From the jacket: VIOLENCE is never a simple matter. Whether it is ever justified is a more thorny question still....In this case, the three men had murdered his wife. There was no doubt in Nathan's mind that they had been members of the mob that dragged the four victims out of the car on that lonely road just outside of town. And there was no hope that Southern justice would ever exact any penalty for the crime. So Nathan packed a suitcase, loaded his Army pistol, and went back to Hainesville. It seemed as simple as that. But this quest for vengeance spread in a complex pattern that enveloped many lives -and blasted the artificial calm of a guilty town.
Arthur Gordon's vivid and angry novel probes deep beneath the surface of this taut situation to examine its impact on a deftly portrayed variety of characters. REPRISAL moves with the swift pace and sharp suspense of an early Hitchcock movie thriller, yet its main achievement is the portrayal of the inhabitants of Hainesville, men and women far more real and complicated than the thin stereotypes who people most novels that deal with racial barriers.
There is Melady, the little writer from a magazine up North, who tried so hard not to become personally involved in his assignment-and failed; Yancy Brown, the proud, dignified undertaker who was the town's Negro leader; Unity, a minister's daughter filled with reforming zeal; and Shep, whom she loved, hard and self-willed and immovable. There is Hester, with a scarred face and a secret shame; and Bubber Aycock, whose private lusts had provoked the lynching. Threading together all their lives is Nathan, frightened but determined, moving through the night on his desperate mission. When a social abscess bursts in terror and violence, and its effect is recounted by a brilliant story-teller, the result must be a novel not to be missed. REPRISAL is just such a book.
Note: 1950 book cover depicts the image of Nathan packing/unpacking his suitcase and holding his Army pistol. In the story Nathan is black. The image above, of a man who looks tanned irish at best, is what I figure the publishers had to advertise to their mostly white consumers. In the book's inside jacket blurb, neither Nathan, his wife or the other victims are advertised as black. This was 1950 America, where a black man with a gun was a white nightmare. Some might say this fear still drives some of the country's incarceration and gun policies today. As spelled out in chapter 44 of title 18 of the U.S. Code, federal law bans convicted felons from possessing firearms or ammunition. ... This rule covers all felonies, but does not apply to state misdemeanors that carry less than a two-year sentence.
Chapter 7 section 2 (pgs. 206-214)
Unity looked anxiously around the table at the faces of her guests. There was a sudden tension in the dining room. It was Melady’s fault. He had steered the conversation to this point. Deliberately, Unity felt.
The day had started well. Hattie had assured her that Nathan
was gone. She had ducked into the garage to satisfy herself, had found no sign
of him. She had spent the rest of the morning helping Hattie prepare the
dinner, feeling as if an intolerable weight had been lifted from her. All
through the long meal she had been happier than she had been in days.
“After a dinner as fine as this one,” said Judge Winter
soothingly, “we really shouldn’t quarrel.”
“I’m not quarreling,” snapped Mrs. Crowe. “I just don’t
intend to sit here and listen to insults.” She glared at her husband. “Why don’t
you say something?”
Lester sniffed gently and stirred his demitasse. “You don’t
seem to need any support, my dear.”
Melady ran one hand through his wiry hair. “All I said was
that if a Negro did kill Neal Aycock, I could hardly blame him. I don’t see
anything insulting about that.”
Mrs. Crowe stared around the table. She was a full-busted
woman with a nasal voice and, apparently, firm opinions. “I must say, I’m
beginning to think I’m the only one in this room who really represents what the
people of the South feel about this race question. I grew up in a county where
the blacks outnumbered the whites. I’ve known ‘em all my life. Some are better
than others, but the general run of ‘em are shiftless, lazy, and dirty.
Especially dirty. Look at any of their cabins! They’d rather be dirty than
clean. Half the time you can smell ‘em. Faugh!”
Aunt Guley widened her mild eyes. “Perhaps we don’t smell so
nice to them, either.”
Everyone laughed except Mrs. Crowe.
“Living in dirt is a sign of poverty and ignorance
everywhere,” Unity said. “The Negroes have no monopoly on that. If we’d educate
them decently, they’d begin to live decently.”
“If we educated them decently,” Lester said gloomily, “they’d
begin to expect a lot of things they couldn’t have. The South isn’t rich. Its
soil is worn out. There’s a limit to the wealth it can produce. It won’t
support a much higher standard of living for those people.”
“In that case,” Melady suggested, “they might move out of
the South into areas of more opportunity.”
“That would be fine!” Mrs. Crowe said emphatically.
“Their schools are a lot better than they were,” Mrs.
Cantrell said to Melady. “Even so, to make them the equal of the whites would
cost millions. Don’t you think it’s a little unfair to ask the white people of
the South to shoulder that cost? After all, the amount the colored people pay
in taxes is infinitesimal.
“Well, the rest of the country will never do it,” Mrs. Crowe
stated. “All they contribute is criticism.”
Judge Winter smoothed his tawny hair. “Some of the criticism
is justified, my dear lady. I don’t think we can pretend the Negro can count on
equality under the law as it is administered in the South today.”
“What’s more,” Melady said, “when these lynchings and other outrages occur, it
plays right into the hands of the Communists.”
“You have your mass murders in the North,” Shep drawled. “You
just don’t call them lynchings, that’s all.”
“And race riots! And discrimination!” echoed Mrs. Crowe with
satisfaction.
“The Communists will never lack for things to criticize,”
Judge Winter said gently to Melady. “When they do, they’ll invent some.”
Melady furrowed his forehead. “It all seems to boil down to
whether or not you think a Negro is racially inferior – or even mentally very
different from a white person. If he is, then perhaps inferior treatment of him
is justified. That’s the way most Southerners seem to reason, anyway.”
“That’s no justification for ill-treatment,” Unity said
sharply. “If it were, you’d be justified in maltreating anyone, white or black,
who could be proved your mental inferior.”
“But they are inferior,” Mrs. Crowe cried. “My heavens, two
hundred years ago their ancestors were running around in the jungle with rings
in their noses!”
“What were your ancestors doing two thousand years ago?”
Melady asked her pleasantly. “Probably running around in bearskins, or
tattooing themselves blue.”
Mrs. Crowe looked at him stonily. “Where you come from, you
don’t have the problem. Consequently you know nothing about it. But you love to
exploit it. You love to come down here looking for the worst; that’s the truth
of the matter! Why don’t you write about the good side? Why don’t you report
that the first hospital ever built exclusively for Negroes was financed,
equipped and organized by the white people of Savannah! Write a story about
that?”
“If you didn’t have Jim Crow,” Melady reminded her, “you
wouldn’t have to build them separate hospitals.”
Mrs. Crowe flushed. “You mean to tell me you’d like to be in
the same ward with a colored patient?”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“Well, I would!” Mrs. Crowe’s bosom trembled with the
vehemence of her emotions. “And so would ninety-nine percent of the people in
the South.” She looked angrily from under her heavy eyelids. “It’s easy enough
for you people from the North to say we should like the Negroes and try to uplift
them. Well, we don’t like them, and we’re going to keep them in their place.
That’s not a theory; that’s a fact! Whether we should like ‘em or not is beside
the point. We don’t!” She paused for breath, then plunged on. “Furthermore,
while you’re talking about rights, seems to me the right of a human being to
dislike something is a pretty fundamental right in itself. If I don’t want a
Communist teaching my children at school, that’s a prejudice, isn’t it? But who
says I’m not entitled to it?”
“You’re entitled to that prejudice,” Melady began, “because
a Communist teacher threatens your way of life . . .”
“Well, people who advocate opening our hospitals and
restaurants and theaters to niggers” – she caught herself – “Negroes, are
threatening my way of life!”
“In most parts of the country that sort of thing is
permitted without causing any undue . . .”
“I don’t care what happens in any other part of the country,”
Mrs. Crowe cried. “Let ‘em have chimpanzees in their theaters if they want! Or
let ‘em have laws keeping chimpanzees out. That’s their business. We won’t
interfere with it!”
“What you’re really defending,” Melady told her, “is the
right of a minority to persecute a smaller minority. Isn’t that it?”
Mrs. Crowe was not daunted. “It’s
not our fault we’re a minority,” she said scornfully. “We tried to get out of
your precious Union. You people defeated us and held us against our will. But
that doesn’t mean we have to pretend to like it. We don’t! We’re a separate country, in our own minds,
and don’t you forget it!”
There was an awkward silence. Mrs. Cantrell glanced
helplessly at Unity. These are your guests, the glance said. Do something!
Unity said hesitantly, “Judge Winter, how would you go about
solving the problem? What would you suggest if by some miracle your
recommendations could be adopted?”
The Judge dropped his handsome head on his chest and considered the question.
Everybody waited. At last he looked up. “Trying to balance the ethics of the
situation with the realities involved certainly isn’t easy. Still, here are
some things I’d recommend. First” – the yellow eyes flicked briefly toward
Melady – “and this will not please you - I’d advocate the retention of
segregation until it breaks down of its own accord in fifty or a hundred or two
hundred years. Any legislation that tries to end it now will fail just as
Prohibition failed, because it won’t have the support of the people. In fact,
like most unenforceable laws, it will only aggravate the situation.
“Secondly, I’d make stronger efforts to give the Negroes
equality of education, with the Federal Government bearing the expense. There’s
no reason, as Mrs. Cantrell said, why the South should carry the whole load.
And the load would be heavy.
“Third” – he was ticking off the points on his fingers – “I’d
see to it that they got justice under the law, using Federal guarantees if
necessary. In some cases, we’d have to by-pass the jury system.” He smiled
thinly. “There would be considerable uproar about that.
“Fourth, I’d safeguard the Negroes’ right to vote – a right
theoretically guaranteed to them by the Constitution, of course, but constantly
under attack in some places . . .”
“Wouldn’t you run into difficulties over segregation?”
Melady asked. “Suppose the Negroes elected a colored man to represent them in
the legislature. Where would he sit?”
“It would be very difficult,” the Judge admitted. “He would
have to sit in a special section and vote from there”
“Wouldn’t that be absurd?”
“Human nature is often absurd,” said the Judge. “But I think
the colored people would rather have a representative voting from behind a
railing than not have one voting at all.”
Lester said slowly, “Would you favor laws guaranteeing the Negro
freedom from discrimination in getting jobs – and advancement in jobs?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” the Judge replied. “That’s something that
seems to me to interfere with the rights of the employer. It’s unenforceable
anyway. And why not leave something to the enterprise and ingenuity of the
colored people themselves?”
Mrs. Crowe gave a derisive snort. The Judge looked at her coldly,
then went on.
“Finally,” he said, “I’d use all available media – schools,
churches, newspapers, radio stations, women’s clubs, everything – to stress the
advisability of these changes from the purely selfish standpoint of the white
people’s self-interest. The South will always be at a disadvantage until the
Negro is pulled out of the mire. A lot of thinking people are beginning to
realize that. The trend is unmistakable.”
Mrs. Crowe looked disgusted. “People always seem to think a
trend must be right just because it’s a trend. Aren’t there ever any wrong
trends? How about the trend toward a depression, or the trend toward another
war?”
“Madam,” said Judge Winter, making her an ironic little bow,
“you are almost unanswerable.”
Lester mumbled something that sounded like “Always has been.”
Shep said, in his lazy drawl, “What do you think, Miss
Cantrell? You haven’t said a word.”
Aunt Guley pursed her lips thoughtfully. “We could always
assimilate them, couldn’t we? That’s what the Chinese do.”
“What?” cried Mrs. Crowe.
Aunt Guley looked helpless. “Well, of course, everybody’d be
a little darker than they are now. But most of the young people spend hours
sitting in the sun anyway, trying to get darker, and . . .”
“Guley!” Mrs. Cantrell rapped on the table. “Stop teasing
everybody!”
“Well,” said Aunt Guley wistfully, “they asked me.”
Mrs. Cantrell pushed back her chair. “Shall we go into the
other room and let Hattie clear away these coffee things?”
Lester glanced regretfully at his watch. “I’d better get
back to the office. My secretary will scold me.” He sighed. “After thirty years
in this game, I still can’t get used to working on Sunday.” He bowed in the
courtly way he had. “So if you’ll excuse us, Mrs. Cantrell . . .”
Unity said, “I’ll be down in a little while, Lester.”
The editor patted her hand. “Don’t bother. Take the afternoon
off.”
They stood on the porch, watching the Crowes move down the
path. “I’d better go too,” Melady said. “I have some writing to do. My editor
in New York is a frustrated writer himself. So nothing anybody ever writes is
quite the way he wants it.”
“That must be trying,” Judge Winter said. “I’ll walk along
with you, if I may.” He turned to Unity. “Thank you, my dear. I’m sorry to have
missed your sister. If she’s half as charming as you, I’m doubly sorry. Mrs.
Cantrell, Miss Cantrell, my thanks to you and my compliments to your admirable
cook.”
He retrieved his hat and stick from the rack in the hall. “Now,
sir,” he said to Melady, “If you are ready . . .”
They walked slowly along the shaded streets, the Judge’s
cane making small tapping sounds. There was little traffic. From hidden lawns
came the whir of mowers. Somewhere a piano tinkled, brittle and somnolent.
“You started that discussion deliberately, didn’t you?” the
Judge asked after a while. “Not very good manners, young man.”
“I suppose not,” Melady admitted. “Still, a writer can’t
always afford to have manners.”
“You’d probably write better,” the Judge observed, “If you
did.”
They walked on in silence through the drowsy sunshine.
“That Crowe woman,” Melady said at length. “Listening to her
makes me think that what you’ve got down here is a white problem, not a Negro
problem. Is her attitude typical?”
“She’s typical of an uncomfortably large majority, I’m
afraid.”
“But they’re so inconsistent. She hates the colored people,
and yet I’m sure she wouldn’t hesitate to entrust her child to one – assuming she
had a child – to be fed and bathed and cared for by one of the untouchables.”
“That’s right.”
They stopped and waited for a street light to change.
“I think I know what it is,” Melady said finally. “They’ve
got a guilt complex about the Negroes. They knew slavery was morally wrong –
and they’d probably have freed the slaves themselves in another decade or so.
But they weren’t allowed to salve their conscience that way. The Yankees came
down and freed the slaves forcibly. That left these people with a guilt feeling
they never could get rid of. The Negroes make ‘em feel guilty, subconsciously,
and they hate ‘em for it.”
The Judge smiled. “A pretty theory, my dear sir. But it
doesn’t fit the case. One of the things that should be obvious to a clear-eyed
observer like yourself is that the lower you get in the social scale – I’m
talking about the whites, now – the more violent is the antipathy for the
Negro. If your hypothesis were correct, Southerners of the upper classes, whose
ancestors owned the slaves, would be the most prejudiced of all.”
Melady decided to abandon a subject which offered such endless
possibilities for confusion and entanglement. He said as much.
The Judge gave his stick a twirl that was almost jaunty. “Well,
now,” he purred, “if you’ve learned that much, perhaps your stay down here hasn’t
been entirely wasted.”
Note: You can learn a lot about American Race Relations just
by reading some of the historical conversations on race, in both fiction and nonfiction.
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2021
The novel is as much about battles between men and women and north and south, as it is about blacks and whites. The author does an excellent job setting the atmosphere of time and place, then peopling it with what feels like authentic characters. Where he might've fallen short is the ending, which seemed a bit rushed and made to fit a super hero type narrative. Or perhaps it just reflects the segregated times in American society, where white supremacy could never allow a black avenger of white injustice to become a hero.
