My goodness.

This one split me right in two.

I’d say this poem by Langston Hughes sums up this powerful book well: ”I am so tired of waiting. Aren’t you, For the world to become good And beautiful and kind? Let us take a knife And cut the world in two— And see what worms are eating At the rind.”

As a white woman, this was convicting and necessarily hard to stomach. I’m grateful for books that force my eyes open and say You will not look away. You will bear witness.

As a human, this broke me. How deeply cruel can our species be?

“Deep in the night from deep in the forest, I heard the barking and howling of hounds. I pulled myself into an even tighter ball atop the tree roots that had become my bed. There was a mama raccoon that lived in the tree. She had taken to walking past me nonchalantly in the darkness. Tonight she stayed in the tree, high above me, listening to the dogs. We were both animals and we didn’t know which of us was the prey. We accepted that we both were. I considered running, leaving my raccoon friend, but in which direction does one run from lightning?”

This book had gorgeous prose—specifically the nature writing made my chest ache at some points.

BUT. Outside of the author’s very red flag history… It annoys me to no end that the writer chose to name drop Asheville multiple times as it being an easy place to get to to stay overnight when in 1950 it would have taken 12+ hours to drive from the Northern coastal marshes of North Carolina to the Western Mountains.

IT’S LIKE HOW ON OUTER BANKS ON NETFLIX RALEIGH IS ONLY A FERRY RIDE AWAY FROM BEAUFORT WHEN IT’S LITERALLY 5 HOURS AWAY.

steps off of my North Carolinian Soapbox

Bear in mind I read this like 5 years ago. I’m all for spice but this whole book was like that Community episode where Troy walks in with pizza and everything is on fire but instead of fire it’s people having sexy times and over dramatic fights and pouting sessions.