In The Land Of Cotton by Martha A Taylor

In The Land of Cotton is a story of relationships, growth, and love.by BookReviewsByDebra

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July 27, 2009: The setting is the deep south during the 1956 when racial tensions were running high. The story is based on the life of the author, Martha Taylor.

Martha was raised in a family that has contempt for African Americans. While both of her parents worked, Lucy took care of her. Lucy's skin was black. While exploring the woods near her home, Martha discovered Lucy's family and home. At first, they did not want her around fearing the repercussions. After time Martha was accepted as one of Lucy's family.

Martha and Silas (Lucy's nephew) form a bond that surpasses mere friendship. Silas resists their bond knowing that it is not safe for Martha. Her family moves to Texas and Silas moves to Chicago. However, they never forget each other and eventually are together again.

In The Land of Cotton is beautifully written. Taylor successfully captures the essence of the period: racial tensions, war, space exploration, John F. Kennedy an Martin Luther King. The reader is transported back in time. Many think the late 50's early 60's were a time of innocence, but was it? In The Land of Cotton is a story of relationships, growth, and love.

'Look away, Dixieland'by gradyharp

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July 11, 2009: Martha A. Taylor has managed to write an involving novel, IN THE LAND OF COTTON, that not only develops an excellent, emotionally moving story, but also serves as a fine textbook for the study of the rise of the civil rights movement from the year 1959 to the present. This could have easily been two separate books, one a history of African Americans in America from the time of slavery through the emancipation to the rise of black leaders culminating in the election of a black president. All of that information is in this story in great detail.

But this book is also a tender story of the coming of age of Martha, a young white girl in the South, enduring a childhood of abuse and hardship, finding solace in the forbidden land of her black housekeeper Lucy's forest grove home in the still sequestered hatefully prejudiced South, learning the true happiness of living from the impoverished but happy camp of blacks who despite the rules of segregation adopt her into the first true family she has known. There is also a love interest in the young Silas, a bright lad who escapes his destiny of picking cotton by escaping to Chicago to better himself through education.

It is this personal aspect of Taylor's writing where she shines most brightly. The manner in which she writes from a young girl's vantage and from the language of her adopted family, allowing us to learn more about African American history simply by taking us through a journey of love, fear, tragedy, faith, death, and hope, gradually changes tempo as each of the characters matures: Martha becomes more in touch with the reality of prejudice, Silas drops his youthful language pattern that marks him as poor, and by the end of the story what could have been a problematic love encounter instead becomes so much more.

Taylor is at her best in the first half of the book, writing with a grace and tenderness and understanding of issues in a manner that is a pure pleasure to read. In the second half of the book the events of Martin Luther King, JFK, riots etc seem at times coldly analytical in comparison to the nature of her creation of the opening of her story: she has a tendency to become a bit preachy in her closing comments at the end of the chapters in this second half of the book.

But these are minor flaws in a thoroughly professional and warmly sensitive novel, a book that deserves a very wide readership. Highly recommended. Grady Harp