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The Shade Tree
Guernica Editions, Fall 2021
300 pages
Trade Paperback
ISBN13: 9781771836296
ISBN10: 1771836296
English
$25.00 Canada, $21.95 US, £12.95 UK
The Shade Tree is a searing exploration of racial injustice set against the backdrop of some of America's most turbulent historical events. The lives of two white sisters and a black midwife are inextricably linked through a series of haunting tragedies, and the characters must make life-changing decisions about where their loyalties lie: with their biological families or with a greater moral cause. From a Florida orange grove to the seat of power in Washington, DC, during the height of the civil rights movement, The Shade Tree tells a sweeping yet intimate story of racial discrimination and the human hunger for justice.
Mavis sifted through her information alone, looking at it from a variety of angles, depending on the day, and coming up with different interpretations. At church, the preacher talked about charity and forgiveness as if he practiced both himself, but Mavis remembered the look of greed on his face as he pushed forward to claim the last piece of Mrs. Dumfrey's lemon cheesecake at the picnic that wasn't a picnic at all, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening around them.
In its account of almost half a century in the lives of two white Southern sisters and of the African Americans whose experiences are inextricable from theirs, The Shade Tree is brutally personal, heartbreakingly political – and remarkably written. Theresa Shea has combined boldness and subtlety with swaths of compassion to come up with a novel that's both complicated and ferociously clear.
Joan Barfoot, Booker and Scotiabank Giller prizes nominee, and author of Abra, Luck, and Critical Injuries
In her nuanced portrait of families riven by race and sex, Theresa Shea offers a searing indictment of Jim Crow’s corrosive influence that, if unleashed and unquestioned, can make monsters of us all. Beautifully and unflinchingly written, this is a novel for our times.
Terry Gamble, Author of THE WATER DANCERS, GOOD FAMILY, and THE EULOGIST
Awards
- Guernica Literary Prize 2020
Links
Books by Theresa Shea
