Mourner's Bench

July 15, 2015
In her debut novel, Faye sensitively explores the turbulence of the civil rights movement in small-town Arkansas through the eyes of a young African-American girl grappling with her religious beliefs. Sarah Jones is just 8 years old in the summer of 1964, but she's determined to take her place among the 12-year-olds on the mourner's bench, the seat at the front of the church where those seeking baptism go to atone and wait for a sign that they've been saved. Congregants at the First Baptist Church in Maeby, Arkansas, believe the sins of children belong to their parents until age 13, but Sarah is eager for baptism in order to uncouple her fate from that of her young mother, Esther Mae. After a five-year absence, Esther has returned to Maeby, hoping to inspire the community to join forces with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, which is pushing for equal rights through sit-ins and freedom rides. But the African-American community in Maeby is suspicious of such sweeping change, and Sarah, raised by her grandmother Muhdea and great-grandmother Granny, wishes her mother would go back where she came from and stop kicking up turmoil. Though Faye's plotting is sometimes rushed and short on dialogue, her first novel is an absorbing meditation on the meaning of religion in a small town as well as a keen-eyed perspective on the way one African-American community encountered the civil rights movement. An astute coming-of-age tale set against an all-too-relevant background.

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September 15, 2015
It's Freedom Summer, 1964, in tiny Maeby, Arkansas, and three SNCC volunteers have come to town determined to integrate the public library and all-white school. They're joined in their efforts by eight-year-old Sarah's unconventional, hot pantswearing mother. The efforts to introduce change divide the black community as many are determined to preserve the old order. Sarah finds herself caught in the middle of all this, first siding with her conservative grandmother and then, gradually, coming to see her mother's point of view. Throughout she is guided by her wise great-grandmother, an early civil rights pioneer. Change is further visited on Sarah's life when she determines to be baptized against her worldly mother's wishes. Slurs, insults, and harassment from the local authorities threaten the movement, as do two disastrous fires. And then Sarah's mother decides to run for city council. Faye's novel is far too long and detailed as she seems determined to include every possible aspect of the civil rights movement on a local scale. Too, Sarah seems olderfar olderthan her years. Nevertheless, the book succeeds at dramatizing an essential era in American history and is a welcome addition to civil rights literature.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)