A POSTCARD FROM THE DELTA

A White high school football star questions his future after a Black father and daughter move to his Arkansas town in this novel.

Johnny Spink is in the Florida Keys, living with an uncle and completing his senior year of high school. Sporting a facial scar, Johnny “had to leave Spinkville last Thanksgiving” after finding “an old, gnawed boot” with “something slimy—bones, mangled, and stinking!” in his mailbox. Then Johnny reveals how he ended up in Florida, going back a few months to that “Ozark town named for my ancestors.” He is the Arkansas town’s high school football hero—with the requisite cheerleader girlfriend—and the son of the rich mayor. Even though it’s 2000 and he is “supposed to like rap, country, alt rock, or head-banging music,” Johnny is deeply drawn to the Delta blues. He is also becoming increasingly educated about his area’s “heart-breaking record of race relations,” with Spinkville having few Black inhabitants given the “hospitality” shown them in the past. Johnny is also feeling the pressures of preordained destiny, exemplified by his coach, indeed the whole town, hoping that he can make a record 1,000-yard gain at an upcoming game. Then Johnny is jolted by the arrival of a Black family: Charles Futrelle, the town’s new poultry plant manager, and his smart, striking daughter, Rae, who joins Johnny’s class. Charles becomes a fishing buddy and mentor and shares his memories of being on the University of Arkansas’ “scout team,” essentially “tackling dummies” and seeing “Black boys getting crippled so white coaches can win!” Johnny realizes that Rae is his first true love, but she is wary of him, more focused on her future at Princeton. As tensions build, Johnny takes a solo road trip to Clarksdale, Mississippi, to fully delve into his beloved blues. The experience is certainly life-changing, since it is there that Johnny receives that scar and then, upon returning home, makes remarks that anger his community, leading him to start anew in the Sunshine State.

The rather sweet, yearning nature of Gaspeny’s hero is a large part of the novel’s charm. Johnny visibly shakes when he finally gets to kiss elusive dream girl Rae. He also remains undaunted in his reverence for the blues by the tale’s end: “I knew from my music there would always be something lurking along the road out to grab and drag me down. But, with the blues as my rock of faith, I thought I could keep my balance and move on, even if I was only stumbling in flip-flops.” The engrossing story’s discussion of racial matters is naturally more complex. Charles’ recounting of his time as a scout is indeed powerful testimony of this particular Black experience in the South. Johnny is also characteristically sincere in describing his time in Clarksdale: “I had a small sense of what black people had to experience because down in the Delta my white skin made a black man hate me.” Yet the furor created by his remarks, with Johnny noting he was “attacked by the NAACP and defended by Black Muslims” and now often feels a “fugitive’s dread,” feels a bit extreme, although it’s sadly reflective of tragically pervasive racial divides.

An absorbing, atmospheric tale of racial reckoning and a blues-infused coming-of-age.