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Prince Edward
A young boy's life-and that of the Southern town he lives in-is dramatically changed over the course of a single historic summer in this unforgettable novel
In August of 1959, Benjamin Rome is ten years old, and his hometown of Farmville, in Prince Edward County, Virginia, is immersed in a frenzy of activity. The Supreme Court has ordered the state to desegregate its public schools; on the heels of the failed "massive resistance" movement, the county has instead voted to close them. With only a few weeks in which to establish a private, whites-only system, most of Ben's family is involved in the effort: his grandfather, Daddy Cary, has the ringleaders making speeches at his sixty-fifth birthday party; his father and his older brother "borrow" Farmville High's lights for the new football field; his mother volunteers at the library book drive.
Come September, the Negro children will have no schools to attend, and that includes Ben's close friend Burghardt, the son of the hired hand who works on Daddy Cary's farm. Ben has always known that the lives of Negroes and whites are separated by a "color line," but none of what he has known seems to make sense anymore. When events lead to an explosive climax, Ben finds himself facing choices beyond his years; it will be a long time before he begins to understand all he learns that summer-one of the hottest on record, and, for him, the longest and most important.
In this, his fifth and finest book, Dennis McFarland evokes, with his customary art and compassion, a wrenching chapter in our nation's history.
In August of 1959, Benjamin Rome is ten years old, and his hometown of Farmville, in Prince Edward County, Virginia, is immersed in a frenzy of activity. The Supreme Court has ordered the state to desegregate its public schools; on the heels of the failed "massive resistance" movement, the county has instead voted to close them. With only a few weeks in which to establish a private, whites-only system, most of Ben's family is involved in the effort: his grandfather, Daddy Cary, has the ringleaders making speeches at his sixty-fifth birthday party; his father and his older brother "borrow" Farmville High's lights for the new football field; his mother volunteers at the library book drive.
Come September, the Negro children will have no schools to attend, and that includes Ben's close friend Burghardt, the son of the hired hand who works on Daddy Cary's farm. Ben has always known that the lives of Negroes and whites are separated by a "color line," but none of what he has known seems to make sense anymore. When events lead to an explosive climax, Ben finds himself facing choices beyond his years; it will be a long time before he begins to understand all he learns that summer-one of the hottest on record, and, for him, the longest and most important.
In this, his fifth and finest book, Dennis McFarland evokes, with his customary art and compassion, a wrenching chapter in our nation's history.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published May 5, 2004
16 people are currently reading
210 people want to read
About the author
Dennis McFarland
24Ìýbooks36ÌýfollowersA 1975 Brooklyn College graduate, McFarland also attended and later taught at Goddard College and Stanford University. At Stanford, McFarland worked as teacher of creative writing from 1981 to 1986. His fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories and The New Yorker. McFarland is married Michelle Simons, and together they have two children. He lives with his family in Massachussetts.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
November 27, 2015
I was looking forward to this. Unfortunately the author ruined what may have turned into a pleasant experience...ruined it only two pages into the book. Only two lines after the first person main character says he is ten years old, there is this passage:
No ten year old ever talked like that--except in badly written books. If the author can't get the voice right for his main character, then he isn't worth my time.
Today, the August sun had warmed the woods and caused the sap to run in the trees, filling the air with the piney scent housewives seemed to want in their cleaning products and room deodorizers but which, in my opinion, had never been successfully reproduced in the laboratory.
No ten year old ever talked like that--except in badly written books. If the author can't get the voice right for his main character, then he isn't worth my time.
May 17, 2010
I found this book entirely by accident and never would have read it if not for another book I'm currently reading. But I did pick it up, and while I found the beginning slow, by the end of it, I was amazed at how well crafted this novel is. A tale of a boy in Prince Edward County, Virginia in the summer of 1959 (Prince Edward was the only county in the country to close its public schools rather than desegregate them), the book starts simply enough with characters that seem one dimensional and a plot that seems straightforward. As the book progresses, the plot shifts, the characters become complex (and are some of the most fascinating and well-sketched characters I've read), and the setting lends itself to a tension that built with each page. Mr. McFarland has the rare skill to write characters that feel like real people - flawed and complicated, good and bad - and that alone makes me want to read more of his books. My only complaint is that the book poorly interspersed some of the "info dumps" about the time period - they were necessary, but they always felt forced into the story rather than natural. But it's a minor complaint to an otherwise exceptional book. Highly recommended.
January 14, 2018
Ben Rome, 10 years old in Prince Edwards, Virginia, in his innocence tries to make sense of the desegregation of his county’s school system in 1959. Based on true facts and real people, the county finds ways around Brown vs. the School Board where all schools were being forced to desegregate. Instead of tax payers funding public schools so that even the poor and black could get educated, they put their money towards private schools for only whites who could afford it. Ben’s friendship with a black boy, Burghart was in conflict with what his father and grandfather believed. Burghart’s father, Julius, worked on the egg farm that his father owned until he walked in on Grand Daddy molesting Burghart in the milking barn. The desegration story was interesting, but the storytelling was a bit slow until the very end. 7 Stars (12.26 to 1.12.18)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 24, 2024
It is 1959 and Brown v. Board of Education has just been passed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Prince Edward County has been asked to desegregate their schools. Rather than do that the power people in the town decide to have a private schools for whites only. Ben Rome and his friend, son of the tenant farmer, are forced to face some big decisions. There are some very interesting insites into the thinking of how this affects the black and white populations. The most thought provoking thought for me was that whites hardly give any thought to the other races around them until they are forced to where the other races in America have to think about whites all the time and how it is going to effect their life.
December 30, 2017
I was just about a year younger than Lainie in 1959, and I vaguely recall my classmates disputing the "rightness" of integration, but it was a few more years before it came to my East Texas town. When it did, I had already moved away, and the whites in town must have become resigned to it by then because I don't recall hearing about any violence--which is surprising considering how racist we all were back then.
July 25, 2024
This was not what I expected.
And I can't tell if this is a good thing
And I can't tell if this is a good thing
September 29, 2011
“I would one day discover on a map that it had a name, Beulah Lee’s Creek, but I never learned who Beulah Lee was or how she came to have a wide meandering ditch of muddy water named for her� (5).
“In the earlier stretches of this time, my grasp of these events was narrow and interior. I recall a slim but critical shift in my personality; I began forming and holding more and more opinions on an increasingly wide range of topics, from the scent of artificial pine to what was the best solution to my parents� violent and disastrous marriage. Forming an opinion and holding it inside seemed to make me count for something more than I had counted for before. I didn’t distinguish between opinions and beliefs. One was as good as the other, and I mistakenly imagined that a storehouse of opinions could steer a person in times of uncertainty, like a travel guide to a foreign country. I suppose that growing older is always, among other things, a deepening acquaintance with human mischief, and mischief had lately begun to flourish in Prince Edward—which seemed to make the world spin faster and to demand more opinions of people, even of children� (11).
“Almost nothing had gone as she’d hoped, and really she hadn’t hoped for all that much� (12-13).
“But of course children could see quite early that everybody grew into an adult who kept secrets. It was why people had to put their hand on the Bible in a courtroom and swear to tell the truth so help them God� (15).
“She reinserted the brush into the bottle, screwed the cap tight, placed the polish on her bedside table, and then rolled onto her back and began waving her feet in the air like a dying cockroach…� (58).
“All I'd so far perceived about newspapers was that they purposely discouraged a person from reading them—with weirdly worded headlines like riddles to be solved; laborious sentences arranged in narrow columns that not only necessitated thousands of hyphenations but also sent you after a few paragraphs on a wild goods chase for the rest of the story; and all, in the end, only to leave your fingers smudged with black ink� (157).
“When Lainie asked him to please pass her the green beans, he asked her why she couldn't eat something close to her� (224).
"I had never heard that expression before, 'drunk as a lord,' and I foun d it interesting , since the only lord I'd hear of was the Lord, whom I'd certainly never imagined drunk. The most intriguing picture of Jesus I'd ever seen was one in which he walked on water, appearing to Peter and teh other disciple as their boat tossed about in a storm, and alter, as I lay on my bed in my room, I envisioned Jesus staggering and weaving across the whitecaps, stewed to the gills" (224).
“Mother said, 'I'm sure it's the heat, Al. If I was inclined to adopt attitudes I would certainly have adopted one these last few days� (266).
“In the earlier stretches of this time, my grasp of these events was narrow and interior. I recall a slim but critical shift in my personality; I began forming and holding more and more opinions on an increasingly wide range of topics, from the scent of artificial pine to what was the best solution to my parents� violent and disastrous marriage. Forming an opinion and holding it inside seemed to make me count for something more than I had counted for before. I didn’t distinguish between opinions and beliefs. One was as good as the other, and I mistakenly imagined that a storehouse of opinions could steer a person in times of uncertainty, like a travel guide to a foreign country. I suppose that growing older is always, among other things, a deepening acquaintance with human mischief, and mischief had lately begun to flourish in Prince Edward—which seemed to make the world spin faster and to demand more opinions of people, even of children� (11).
“Almost nothing had gone as she’d hoped, and really she hadn’t hoped for all that much� (12-13).
“But of course children could see quite early that everybody grew into an adult who kept secrets. It was why people had to put their hand on the Bible in a courtroom and swear to tell the truth so help them God� (15).
“She reinserted the brush into the bottle, screwed the cap tight, placed the polish on her bedside table, and then rolled onto her back and began waving her feet in the air like a dying cockroach…� (58).
“All I'd so far perceived about newspapers was that they purposely discouraged a person from reading them—with weirdly worded headlines like riddles to be solved; laborious sentences arranged in narrow columns that not only necessitated thousands of hyphenations but also sent you after a few paragraphs on a wild goods chase for the rest of the story; and all, in the end, only to leave your fingers smudged with black ink� (157).
“When Lainie asked him to please pass her the green beans, he asked her why she couldn't eat something close to her� (224).
"I had never heard that expression before, 'drunk as a lord,' and I foun d it interesting , since the only lord I'd hear of was the Lord, whom I'd certainly never imagined drunk. The most intriguing picture of Jesus I'd ever seen was one in which he walked on water, appearing to Peter and teh other disciple as their boat tossed about in a storm, and alter, as I lay on my bed in my room, I envisioned Jesus staggering and weaving across the whitecaps, stewed to the gills" (224).
“Mother said, 'I'm sure it's the heat, Al. If I was inclined to adopt attitudes I would certainly have adopted one these last few days� (266).
July 2, 2012
Very interesting novel/historical perspective on desegregating our schools, particularly in Virginia, where in one county was successful in closing down the public schools and the white folk creating their own private schools. Historically it only lasted a short time.
The story is set at a time when the county school board made their decision to close the public schools. The central character is a young adolescent boy who doesn't completely buy into the notion of the separation of whites and blacks and becomes frustrated by the all the "games" people are playing. He lives with his parents and older sister on family land, who struggle with running a chicken egg farm and have the assistance of one black family who live in a shanty on the property. He learns virtues from an older black woman, mother of a son who works for the boy's father and grandmother of a grandson, who has a friendship with the boy.
Life on the farm becomes complicated with the father and older brother assist in transitioning the local public high school football lights to the site of a new football field for the private school. The older sister is pregnant with the child from a boyfriend, soon to be husband who is off serving in the military.
In addition the boy's grandfather is fairly well known successful farmer.
For someone who never came into contact with that type of environment and can look back retrospectively of culture with misguided immoral guidelines, helps to gain some understanding of the struggle a younger generation was living through.
It's a good read and recommend it to anyone.
The story is set at a time when the county school board made their decision to close the public schools. The central character is a young adolescent boy who doesn't completely buy into the notion of the separation of whites and blacks and becomes frustrated by the all the "games" people are playing. He lives with his parents and older sister on family land, who struggle with running a chicken egg farm and have the assistance of one black family who live in a shanty on the property. He learns virtues from an older black woman, mother of a son who works for the boy's father and grandmother of a grandson, who has a friendship with the boy.
Life on the farm becomes complicated with the father and older brother assist in transitioning the local public high school football lights to the site of a new football field for the private school. The older sister is pregnant with the child from a boyfriend, soon to be husband who is off serving in the military.
In addition the boy's grandfather is fairly well known successful farmer.
For someone who never came into contact with that type of environment and can look back retrospectively of culture with misguided immoral guidelines, helps to gain some understanding of the struggle a younger generation was living through.
It's a good read and recommend it to anyone.
November 10, 2014
In August of 1959, Benjamin Rome is ten years old, and his hometown of Farmville, in Prince Edward County, Virginia, is immersed in a frenzy of activity. The Supreme Court has ordered the state to desegregate its public schools; on the heels of the failed "massive resistance" movement, the county has instead voted to close them. With only a few weeks in which to establish a private, whites-only system, most of Ben's family is involved in the effort: his grandfather, Daddy Cary, has the ringleaders making speeches at his sixty-fifth birthday party; his father and his older brother "borrow" Farmville High's lights for the new football field; his mother volunteers at the library book drive.
Come September, the Negro children will have no schools to attend, and that includes Ben's close friend Burghardt, the son of the hired hand who works on Daddy Cary's farm. Ben has always known that the lives of Negroes and whites are separated by a "color line," but none of what he has known seems to make sense anymore. When events lead to an explosive climax, Ben finds himself facing choices beyond his years; it will be a long time before he begins to understand all he learns that summer-one of the hottest on record, and, for him, the longest and most important.
In this, his fifth and finest book, Dennis McFarland evokes, with his customary art and compassion, a wrenching chapter in our nation's history.
Another good historical novel about an event I didn't know much about, desegregation of the schools in 1959-1960. The characters are very layered, you get a real feel for the scene that the author paints. A new author for me I will certainly read again.
Come September, the Negro children will have no schools to attend, and that includes Ben's close friend Burghardt, the son of the hired hand who works on Daddy Cary's farm. Ben has always known that the lives of Negroes and whites are separated by a "color line," but none of what he has known seems to make sense anymore. When events lead to an explosive climax, Ben finds himself facing choices beyond his years; it will be a long time before he begins to understand all he learns that summer-one of the hottest on record, and, for him, the longest and most important.
In this, his fifth and finest book, Dennis McFarland evokes, with his customary art and compassion, a wrenching chapter in our nation's history.
Another good historical novel about an event I didn't know much about, desegregation of the schools in 1959-1960. The characters are very layered, you get a real feel for the scene that the author paints. A new author for me I will certainly read again.
August 14, 2015
This troubling book is based on real events in 1959 when faced with court ordered school desegregation, Prince Edward County, Virginia, decided to close all of its schools and set up a whites-only private system. The story is told through the eyes of ten-year-old Ben who lives on his family's chicken farm. During a hot summer of confusing events, Ben tries to understand the color barriers that have always surrounded him. Ben has worked and played along side Burghardt for years, but Burghardt, who is black, won't have a school to go back to in the fall. Ben's family is dominated by his grandfather, Daddy Cary, whose meanness and other disturbing impulses affect all around him.
The book had an ambitious amount going on, and at times the family's pathologies overwhelm the already complex and troubling story of long held racial bias. Having the perpetrators of some of the worst behavior be so flawed threatened to trivialize that behavior. It's too easy when hateful people do hateful things. I would have liked it if the book had offered more insights on why ordinary people did (or didn't) contribute to the hatefulness and injustices.
The book had an ambitious amount going on, and at times the family's pathologies overwhelm the already complex and troubling story of long held racial bias. Having the perpetrators of some of the worst behavior be so flawed threatened to trivialize that behavior. It's too easy when hateful people do hateful things. I would have liked it if the book had offered more insights on why ordinary people did (or didn't) contribute to the hatefulness and injustices.
November 10, 2014
I enjoyed this book a lot and I give it a 3 (really, 3.75 to be precise!) out of 5 stars. My rating would have been higher, except that the lengthy historical details kept interrupting the flow of the story. The author was simultaneously balancing a lot of non-fiction political details with a fictional story and I felt the book would have been better served either as a non-fiction tome or as a fiction novel a little less heavy on the details. I found myself skimming through lengthy descriptions to "get back to the story".
That said, I still found this to be a captivating book. The characters felt real to me, not forced or contrived. The history of how Prince Edward County Virginia closed its public schools rather than integrate is a shameful, unfortunately true, event and this book does an excellent job of bringing that period of history to light.
That said, I still found this to be a captivating book. The characters felt real to me, not forced or contrived. The history of how Prince Edward County Virginia closed its public schools rather than integrate is a shameful, unfortunately true, event and this book does an excellent job of bringing that period of history to light.
February 9, 2011
Mmm... I'm still finishing this book, but I almost don't like the story. Also the writing lapses into history lessons, losing the tone of the the narration altogether, and losing me. But I like to read about other cultures, and the South is about as mysterious to me as any other foreign land, especially Virginia during 1959.
I know this guy is capable of better writing, because after I read something else by him, I put all of his books on my list! I will still certainly try his other stories.
After finishing this book, I feel like I was being a bit harsh. I liked it ok, just don't have high recommendations for it and I wish I did!
I know this guy is capable of better writing, because after I read something else by him, I put all of his books on my list! I will still certainly try his other stories.
After finishing this book, I feel like I was being a bit harsh. I liked it ok, just don't have high recommendations for it and I wish I did!
December 28, 2014
An immersion into the minds of those who lived in Virginia post Brown vs. Board of Education, when a county (Prince Edward) decided to close down the public schools and open private schools rather than integrate. McFarland uses a 10 year boy living on a chicken farm with his family and black laborers to tell the story, leading the reader to go through his process of learning what was acceptable thinking and what was unacceptable. An incredible insight into racism with some very troubling scenes that caused me to put the book down for a few days. However, I found it to be a compelling read and I would highly recommend it to anyone.
October 11, 2014
A beautifully crafted novel, set in Prince Edward County, VA, during the 1950's, whose white residents refused to integrate their public schools by instead opening private ones. The result - black children and poor whites had no access to education. The story is told by fictional ten-year old, Ben Rome. His is a moving story, and his insights about his family, his friendships, and the goings-on in his world are lyrically told by Dennis McFarland.
November 11, 2014
I loved this book. Dennis McFarland was able to tell a very important story of one community's struggle with desegregation in Virginia in the 50's. It's disturbing, and told through the eyes of a 10-year old who is both innocent and an accomplice. I was captured in the first few pages and didn't want it to end.
I'd recommend Prince Edward to anyone who would appreciate the hard truth of the struggles of this time in the South.
I'd recommend Prince Edward to anyone who would appreciate the hard truth of the struggles of this time in the South.
April 26, 2010
The main focus of the book was the segregatio/desegregation of schools in the South-but as seen through a 10 yr old. I think by using a child the author was allowed to be more honest-as children tend to be. There were a few moments when I teared up and another when I fully cried. Very well written.
This is not a kid's book if the narrator's age led you to believe so.
This is not a kid's book if the narrator's age led you to believe so.
November 27, 2014
This book got off to a bit of a slow start for me but then had me riveted. It was interesting to see the world through the perspective of a 10 year-old boy, especially when as an adult I understood much more about what was happening than he did himself. I was interested to discover that Prince Edward is a real place and most of the events that are the setting for the story were real.
February 24, 2017
Wonderful historic fiction about a 10 year old boy, Benjamin Rome, living in Prince Edward County, Virginia, during the 1950's. Very well researched. I enjoyed Bennie's thoughts on the things that were going on around him, as he lived on his grandfather's farm.
October 31, 2011
I loved this book. Beautifully written. Takes place in 1959 in Prince Edward County, VA during the school desegregation conflicts. Just loved it!
June 10, 2013
This novel was amazing. I really enjoyed it.
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February 7, 2014 I enjoyed this book very much. I plan to read more of his work.
November 22, 2014
Not the greatest story in the world, but I can't believe that I was alive while this stuff was going on in Prince Edward County right here in Virginia. Sad...
January 26, 2016
A look at integration through the eyes of a ten-year old boy, public school closings in late 50's Virginia; a great read
April 24, 2016
Segregation in Southern Virginia. One boy's story. Story dragged a bit.
July 27, 2016
Based on actual events during the summer of 1959 involving desegregation in Virginia. A little dry at times but interesting characters.
August 23, 2018
I read this for Contemporary American History - back in undergrad and it shook me to the core.
February 16, 2008
Look up "Prince Edward County" in Wikipedia.
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