Arkansas Summer

Book cover of Arkansas Summer

Book description

Arkansas Summer is a powerful novel about love and racial terror in the Jim Crow South. It's 1955, and Catherine has joined her father in Arkansas after her grandfather's death. She's a California college student, and it's her first visit to her grandparents' farm since the summer she was nine.…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Arkansas Summer as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Nancy Klann-Moren

Author

I know the words poignant and Shakespearean are almost cliché when describing stories, but I say, "If the cliché fits, use it."

I love good vs. evil stories, especially if they're set in the South. This one delivers. Forbidden love in the 1950's Jim Crow South is fertile soil for missteps and trouble. During a summer visit to her grandmother's, Catherine's naiveté about the way things were in the South back then made me anxious for her and Jimmy. Their mixed-race attraction for each other was doomed from the start. Part romance, part thriller, I found the suspense in this…

From Nancy's list on southern novels that aren't "To Kill a Mockingbird".