Eleanor Henderson was born in Greece, grew up in Florida, and attended Middlebury College and the University of Virginia. Her debut novel, Ten Thousand Saints, was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2011 by the New York Times and a finalist for the Award for First Fiction from the Los Angeles Times and was adapted into a film in 2015. An associate professor at Ithaca College, she lives in Ithaca, New York, with her husband and two sons.
The Twelve-Mile Straight
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- ISBN-13: 9780062422095
- Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
- Publication date: 09/18/2018
- Pages: 352
- Sales rank: 81,769
- Product dimensions: 0.00(w) x 0.00(h) x (d)
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*NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE*
*An Entertainment Weekly "Must-Read" Book for Fall*
From New York Times bestselling author Eleanor Henderson, an audacious American epic set in rural Georgia during the years of the Depression and Prohibition.
Cotton County, Georgia, 1930: in a house full of secrets, two babies-one light-skinned, the other dark-are born to Elma Jesup, a white sharecropper’s daughter. Accused of her rape, field hand Genus Jackson is lynched and dragged behind a truck down the Twelve-Mile Straight, the road to the nearby town. In the aftermath, the farm’s inhabitants are forced to contend with their complicity in a series of events that left a man dead and a family irrevocably fractured.
Despite the prying eyes and curious whispers of the townspeople, Elma begins to raise her babies as best as she can, under the roof of her mercurial father, Juke, and with the help of Nan, the young black housekeeper who is as close to Elma as a sister. But soon it becomes clear that the ties that bind all of them together are more intricate than any could have ever imagined. As startling revelations mount, a web of lies begins to collapse around the family, destabilizing their precarious world and forcing all to reckon with the painful truth.
Acclaimed author Eleanor Henderson has returned with a novel that combines the intimacy of a family drama with the staggering presence of a great Southern saga. Tackling themes of racialized violence, social division, and financial crisis, The Twelve-Mile Straight is a startlingly timely, emotionally resonant, and magnificent tour de force.
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Victor LaValle
This engaging, expansive novel manages to feel historical and, sadly, up to the minute as it probes the sins at the heart of the American experience...This is the kind of novel you sink into, live inside. When you’re finished, it will live inside you. A bravura performance.Dana Spiotta
Lyrical...mesmerizing, disturbing, and wonderfully persuasive. The world is brutal even as the landscape is lush and seductive...Unstinting in showing us the everyday savagery of Jim Crow, of poverty, and of family abuse. A riveting, consequential story full of complex secrets and unexpected turns.Cristina Henríquez
One of the deepest and most nuanced explorations of our shared humanity that I’ve read...The writing is so extraordinary it will make your teeth ache; the story is so compelling that you may gasp out loud...This is no ordinary novel. It is art of the highest order.Bill Cheng
A family drama, a mystery, a Southern Gothic, and a searing study of the complexities of race in America...Cotton County is a dark place, tortured by its own secrets, and it’s in Henderson’s expert hand and penetrating eye that those secrets are carried into light.Christopher Tilghman
An intricate and fascinating tale of maternity and paternity, of race and blood, of two young women doing what they must do to survive...This is brave material, confronted with unblinking honesty and woven with intelligence and grace.Booklist
Totally immersing, provocative...The world of Twelve Mile Straight—the rural back road of this engrossing novel’s title, with its illegal distillery, chain gangs, and lynchings—will continue to haunt readers long after they finish the final page.Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An absorbing epic of poor Georgia farm people and other folks they encounter in dicey, hardscrabble times. The elegant yet swift and crafty storytelling is spiked with so many surprises.Philadelphia Inquirer
This is one of the most beautiful books, as an object, I’ve ever held. What’s inside is even more beautiful: beautifully told, beautifully written, a story that penetrates to the American heart, and all the light and darkness therein.O: the Oprah Magazine
[A] superb novel whose roots can be traced to Harper Lee and Carson McCullers.Nylon Magazine
Affecting, profound...offers readers a rich, comprehensive portrait of the powerful forces at work in the Jim Crow South... Henderson does an incredible job. the Oprah Magazine O
[A] superb novel whose roots can be traced to Harper Lee and Carson McCullers.The Ithaca Times
Doesn’t exclude the true horrors women and people of color faced in 1930s Georgia, these tragedies depicted through a fictional town with fictional characters, facing the same stakes and complicated pasts as the real town with real people. The work is raw, aching and concerning...dauntless...timeless.Paste Magazine
Searing...The Twelve-Mile Straight takes readers to some remarkable places, always brought to life in Henderson’s lean, vivid prose. Seattle Times
Riveting...Henderson immerses you in characters worthy of Flannery O’Connor...A masterful piece of storytelling.Library Journal
★ 08/01/2017In 1930 Georgia, retribution is swift when white sharecropper's daughter Elma Jesup gives birth to two babies, one dark-skinned. For the presumed rape, field hand Genus Jackson is dragged to his death down a local road called the Twelve-Mile Straight. Thus does the tragedy of racial violence in the Jim Crow South shape the narrative, but Henderson (Ten Thousand Saints) is after something more, showing the damage wrought by divisions of class as well as race and the way both a family and a community can be sustained by lies. As Elma raises the children with the help of young black housekeeper Nan, nearly a sister to her, it's evident that her dreams for a better life were short-circuited from the start by the contempt with which folks like her are regarded by other whites. The tangled, often painful relations binding Nan, Elma, and Elma's father also emerge, along with questions regarding the children's paternity, a mystery that drives the narrative forward to a strong, morally riven climax. VERDICT Henderson's highly recommended title delivers a powerful tale of social complexity told in radiant and precise prose. [See Prepub Alert, 3/3/17.]—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal