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Synopsis
An anonymous observer narrates the moving tale of spirited ten-year-old Billy Lee, a black boy who is convicted and executed for the murder of a white girl in Banes, Mississippi, in the 1930s. A first novel. 15,000 first printing.
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About the Author
Albert French served four years in the US Marines and later worked as a medical photographer and photojournalist. He is the founder of the Pittsburgh Preview Magazine, as well as the author of the novels Billy and Holly, and the memoir Patches of Fire. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
From Kirkus Reviews
Death, race, and injustice in the Deep South--in a deeply felt but crude first novel about the accidental death of a white girl that leads to the judicial murder of the black boy who killed her. The small town of Banes, Mississippi, 1937. White folks live in town, black folks live in the Patch. Proudest of the latter is Cinder, who has raised her son Billy Lee Turner on her own; her man Otis left for Chicago before Billy was born. But ten-year-old Billy has inherited Otis's ``wild-dog temper'' and carries a knife. Swimming in a pond in the woods with his friend Gumpy, the boys are attacked and overpowered by two older white girls, Lori and Jenny. Struggling to escape, Billy stabs Lori, who dies soon after. White vigilantes storm through the Patch and burn down a shack, despite the boys' speedy arrest. Even though mean Sheriff Tom concedes that ``that boy ain't got the slightest idea what he done,'' Billy is charged with first-degree murder, tried as an adult, sentenced to death and electrocuted. All of this is told with melodramatic frenzy (Cinder's eyes ``glowed the color of her burning soul'') and in a dialect so thick the characters sink under its weight. The all-seeing narrative eye roves so restlessly over a host of black and white characters that it never fixes on one, even Billy, for long--while minor but important characters, like Cinder's white father, get lost in the shuffle. Aside from a few moments of pathos when Billy is on Death Row, French's novel stays at the level of a lurid comic-strip. It is always distressing when a writer works at a harrowing portrayal of evil and misses by a country mile. For a fine treatment of similar material, read Ernest Gaines's A Lesson Before Dying (p. 167). -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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- PublisherThe Viking Press
- Publication date1993
- ISBN 10 0670850136
- ISBN 13 9780670850136
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages224
- Rating
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Billy
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Billy
Published by
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ISBN 10: 0670850136
ISBN 13: 9780670850136
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ISBN 10: 0670850136
ISBN 13: 9780670850136
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Hard Cover. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 2nd Printing. BZ2 - A hard cover 2nd printing withdrawn ex-library book in good+ to very good- condition with a dust jacket in very good condition. A tight, clean, sound copy in gray paper covered boards quarter bound in white cloth with silver lettering and graphics on the spine with minor overall shelf wear with some tape staining on the outside surfaces of the front and back boards from where the dust jacket endflaps were taped to the boards plus there are the usual library stamps and labels on the top and bottom outside paper edges, the front free endpaper, the title page, and the copyright page plus the book is very slightly shelf cocked plus there is some very, very light glue residue on the front free endpaper from a library pocket. The dust jacket shows very minor overall shelf wear plus it is still in the original library mylar sleeve. A novel set in 1930s Mississippi about the death of a girl in an accident and the state's killing of one African-American boy who is convicted and executed for murdering her. This is the author's first novel. 214p. Size: 6"x8.75". Ex-Library. Seller Inventory # SCW11661
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