Alligator Lake

March 15, 2012
Like her first novel, Catfish Alley (2011), Bryant's second is set in Mississippi and addresses racism past and present. Avery Pritchett, who is white, fled her home in Greendale, Mississippi, a decade ago, pregnant with the child of a young black man, Aaron Monroe, with whom she was deeply in love. The wedding of her brother brings Avery back to Greendale with her daughter, Celi, in tow. Avery has a mission: to find out who passed on the gene for sickle-cell anemia, from which Celi suffers. Avery's return leads her mother, Marion, to confront her own racist views, while her grandmother Willadean recalls a lost love from decades ago. Avery herself is shaken when she learns that Aaron, now a successful physician, is also in town with his wife and their two children. She is forced to confront the devastating act of violence that led her to flee Greendale, leaving Aaron and her family behind. Bryant's engrossing, sprawling, multigenerational drama paints a complex portrait of the Deep South.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)