Secrets and revenge haunt a Mississippi plantation in Pale, the potent debut novel from Edward A. Farmer. Bernice takes a job as a servant in the Kern household to find stability and a place with her brother when she was otherwise alone. Jesse and Fletcher, the two sons of fellow servant Silva, arrive to work the cotton harvest in the summer of 1966, and the Missus sees an opportunity to repay old wounds. Flirting with Jesse is only the beginning of a plan that will destroy families. Bernice struggles to discover the roots of the Missus's anger while shielding those that she cares for as much as possible.
Pale is a spare book, full of characters that do not give up their secrets easily. The world is changing as the civil rights movement surges across the country, but at the Kern plantation, young men ask what makes them different from slaves. Missus's revenge is for wrongs a generation old, and its aftermath will stretch into the next. Although this is a brief book, Farmer takes his time setting out the methods by which characters will destroy each other over the course of years. Small, cruel truths slowly come out. Readers will hang on each page, just as Bernice feels bound to stay until the story is done. This intergenerational story of racism, patriarchy and vengeance is one that will not soon be forgotten. --Kristen Allen-Vogel, information services librarian at Dayton Metro Library