Corn Hollow - LaVerne McLeod

Discover a never-experienced fictitious story of growing up in the agrarian South during the Civil Rights era. Set in the farming community of Corn Hollow, Tennessee, the story takes place from the early 1950’s to early 1970’s. Corn Hollow is told through the young African American protagonist, Tamara Banks, as she grows up with a question. While in the process of seeking answers, she stumbles upon various encounters of injustice; of race and gender, incest and poverty, alcoholism and prostitution. Due to the subject matter, this novel is more suited to high school age young adults and other adults. Parental discretion is advised for the middle grade reader.

Although Tamara’s family lived an agrarian life of sharecropping and farming, her father, Daddy Al, was Corn Hollow’s “white lightning” whiskey maker.  His tendency toward whoredom created marital frustrations for his wife, Zettie Mae, and other family upheavals. There was inner hatred for giving birth to Tamara’s very dark-skinned, smart-mouthed and truth telling sister, Althea. This combined with her personal relationship with Daddy Al, Momma Zettie Mae unleashed a heavy and regrettable beating on this daughter.

Will answers to Tamara's question ever unravel? With KKK violence in Corn Hollow as well an inner family turmoil, what is the fate of the Banks family?

 Beyond the colloquial and dialectal language of this historical fiction, the reader may possibly gain several insights:

1) strength to overcome difficult situations

2) awareness of the need to make this a better world that is equitable to everyone

3) perhaps to start shedding guilty thoughts and beliefs about racism

4) a heightened strength of responsibility to keep moving forward with goals

5) acquaintance as a history lover to a rural southern African American culture, while following the threads of the Civil Rights Movement in America