Ain’t No Grave
Based on an infamous episode from Georgia history as experienced by two childhood friends, Ain’t No Grave paints a unique picture of the early 20th century. In 1906, nine-year-old Ruby Johnson and Max Sassaport are best friends. She’s the daughter of a sharecropper and he’s the Jewish son of the owner of the town’s only dry goods store, but all they care about is playing together in the woods. They know that at a certain age, Black and white children will be separated, but when? To learn their fortunes, they seek out Mayhaley Lancaster, the Oracle of Heard County. Not only will they be parted, but they won’t be permitted to speak to each other—though years later they will reconnect in a city. At eleven, Ruby has to flee, finding work as a child laborer in an Atlanta pencil factory. To get news about Ruby, Max takes her father to see Mayhayley. Ruby is fine, but she warns Max that a great darkness will come to him, and he must avoid falling into it.
Five years later, still pining for Ruby, Max moves to Atlanta, where he becomes a cub reporter working for the leading writer of the Atlanta Journal, Harold Ross. When Ross sends him to an informant who works for the factory where a crime was committed for inside information, she turns out to be Ruby Johnson. The darkness Mayhayley predicted begins with this violent murder of a 13-year-old white girl. The novel becomes a murder mystery, but more crucially, it reveals the corruption of the law and journalism of the day. Tense race relations and antisemitism intensify the crisis, with Max and Ruby’s love weaving through all. Their forbidden relationship and perspective on these horrific events create a suspenseful, tightly written story. Highly recommended.
