The Last Blue

May 1, 2020

It's 1937 in Chance, a tiny, remote town in eastern Kentucky. Havens and Massey, a photographer and journalist duo, have been sent on assignment by the president's Farm Security Administration as part of an outreach program to pitch his New Deal to the country, promoting stories of citizens experiencing hard times. Local rumors pique the curiosity of the two, and they discover a secret in Spooklight Holler--a tiny enclave of Blues, those with blue skin, persecuted by the "right-skinned" locals, driven out of the region or into hiding when they weren't killed altogether. After Havens suffers a snake bite, a young Blue woman, Jubilee, and her family take him in and nurse him back from the brink of death. As the friendship between Jubilee and Havens deepens, Havens and Massey must decide which way their story should turn. Do they reveal this Blue community and sell a sensational story, or do they protect the lives of these rare and already endangered people? VERDICT A rich historical portrait of the region, Morley's (Above) love story is also for fans of photography and history buffs looking for novels set in the WPA era.--Julie Kane, Washington & Lee Lib., Lexington, VA

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2020
Photographer Clay Havens is in a professional rut. It's 1937, and he and his journalist partner are on assignment for President Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration, dispatched to rural Kentucky to capture sympathetic portraits of the hardworking hill people. Havens hasn't been inspired by his work for some time, despite a Pulitzer to his name, but that all changes when he spots Jubilee Buford out in the woods. The young woman's skin is an impossible, iridescent blue. As Havens chase down the story of the Blues, a group of people cast out by suspicious townspeople and forced to live in a holler, he comes to care for Jubilee deeply. But prejudice and narrow-mindedness still run rampant among the residents aligned against Jubilee and her kin, and soon she and Havens will have to face the forces mustering against them. Morley has constructed a memorable and moving narrative, complicated by the troubles of the past and shadowed by the risk of betrayal, which probes what it means to truly be seen and understood for oneself.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)