Sunday's Orphan
by Catherine Gentile
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Pub Date Sep 29 2021 | Archive Date Jul 29 2021
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Description
1930, MARTONSVILLE, GEORGIA: After her adoptive uncle’s death, twenty-year-old Promise Mears Crawford, a free-thinking white woman, finds herself trapped in an identity not of her making, betrothed to a man not of her choosing, and entwined in the aftermath of Martonville’s first racial murder in twenty years. Three days of unprecedented occurrences entice Promise to explore new truths about her family’s complicated history and press beyond the choke hold of her own prejudice, past the boundaries of love and lies, to untangle the deceptions permeating her life and her community. Years later, in New England, Promise confesses the details of her struggle to ferret out her history amidst a culture of lofty idealism and family secrets—including the blackmail scheme that ultimately freed her to embrace a new identity. Sunday’s Orphan will immerse readers in an emotional journey through the depiction of life in the Jim Crow South, a chapter of our country’s history riddled with paradoxes: outrage and compassion, terror and boldness, shame and the most profound outpouring of human love.
CATHERINE GENTILE’S fiction received the Dana Award for Short Fiction. Her debut novel, The Quiet Roar of a Hummingbird, was a Finalist in the Eric Hoffer Novel Award for Excellence in Independent Publishing. Small Lies, a collection of short stories, was released in October 2020. Her nonfiction covers a variety of topics and has appeared in Writers’ Market, North Dakota Quarterly, Down East, and Maine Magazine. She currently edits and publishes a monthly ezine entitled Together With Alzheimer's, which has subscribers throughout the United States. A native of Hartford, Connecticut, Catherine lives with her husband and muse on a small island off the coast of Maine. Her latest novel, Sunday's Orphan, is scheduled for release in September, 2021.
A Note From the Publisher
Content warning: there is a scene in this novel describing a lynching as well as, separately, references to a rape (which is not depicted).
Advance Praise
“Catherine Gentile brings Jim Crow to vivid, heartbreaking life in this tale of a complicated, endearing woman caught between the cruelty of her time and the emerging secrets of her own identity. Compelling, timely, and beautifully written.”
—Monica Wood, author of One In a Million Boy, When We Were the Kennedys, and Ernie's Ark
“. . . just plain excellent. Through its acuity of expression, emotional and psychological insight, and the unfolding of characters, it allows us to enter an historical period—the Jim Crow South—that is critical to understand racism today. This is imaginative work that hits home.”
—Jeremiah Conway, PhD Professor Emeritus, University of Southern Maine, author of The Alchemy of Teaching; The Transformation of Lives
“Brace yourself! As soon as you open Sunday’s Orphan, you will find yourself in a disturbing world—an apparent oasis of interracial harmony surrounded by the threat of the Jim Crow culture of 1930 Georgia. You’ll feel the humid heat of the midday sun, smell the farm animals and the smokehouse, and hear the menacing sound of a newcomer whistling “Dixie”. Keep going if you like the suspense of a page turner, care to unravel the intricate relationships of intriguing characters, and enjoy masterfully researched and well written prose. But read especially to feel for yourself the forces that shaped the heritage of today’s African Americans, as their parents and grandparents emerged from slavery and tried to claim their right to freedom and equality.
–Phyllis Chinlund, MA, MSW, documentary filmmaker, and author of Looking Back from the Gate
“The past is prologue, as Shakespeare once said, and Promise Mears Crawford, protagonist of Sunday’s Orphan, finds new meaning in that phrase as a twenty-year old in 1930 racially divided Georgia. What begins as simple curiosity quickly turns into a driving pathos as her hidden family history unravels in tandem with her own increasingly complicated present life. Love, a need to belong, and a search for self-identity collide with the bitter reality of Jim Crow racism and a dark history that refuses to go away. Catherine Gentile takes us on a twisting journey where happy endings are at first hard to imagine, but where the human spirit ultimately prevails.”
—Jack Trammell, PhD, Mount Saint Mary’s University, author with Alphine W. Jefferson, of The Richmond Slave Trade: The Economic Backbone of the Old Dominion
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781647185732 |
| PRICE | $18.95 (USD) |
