Rattlebone

Rattlebone / Maxine Clair 
McNally Editions, 2022, c1994.
208 p.

I don't remember who first mentioned this one to me, but I'm really glad someone did. It's a collection of linked short stories that follow Irene Wilson, a young girl growing up in the segregated 50s in Rattlebone, a small Black town near Kansas City. 

We learn about many families in Rattlebone, and all the ways they are connected, through Irene's perspective. She feels that there is something going wrong with her parents' marriage, and she's right; she's also right in her vague sense that her glamorous new teacher might have something to do with it. 

She shares the sorrows of her neighbour, around her age, who has a special needs older brother, and she explores forbidden friendships/romance with a couple of schoolmates who belong to a local religious sect. There is a visceral story of a flood, and one of an accident in their high school. They are coming-of-age moments for Irene, each important in her life. 

The book starts with Irene at 8, with flash moments at 13, 15, and finishing as she graduates high school. It explores all the elements of growing up with segregation, including one story in which she isn't allowed to compete at a regional oratory contest even though she's won her school's prize, solely because she is black. It tracks the incursions of white people into Rattlebone, usually because they want something. And it shows how Rattlebone is a small place in the end, with everyone knowing everything about one another. 

While it's a set of connected stories, it does read like a novel, with cohesion and closure at the end. It's compelling reading, with passion and heartbreak, love and loyalty and family - all the things of life. Really worth searching out if you haven't read this one yet.