Rattlebone

By Maxine Clair

In Rattlebone, a "fictional" black community north of Kansas City, the smell of manure and bacon from Armour's Packing House is everywhere; Shady Maurice's roadhouse plays the latest jazz; the best eggs are sold by the Red Quanders; and gospel rules at the Strangers Rest Baptist Church.

This is the black Midwest of the 1950s, when towns could count their white folks on one hand—the years before the Civil Rights movement came along and changed everything. In perfectly cadenced vernacular, Maxine Clair speaks to us through the voices of Rattlebone's citizens: October Brown, the new schoolteacher with a camel's walk and shoulder-padded, to-the-nines dresses; Irene Wilson, naive and wise, who must grapple with her parent's failing marriage as she steps eagerly into adulthood; and Thomas Pemberton, owner of the local rooming house, an old man with a young heart.

Sparkling with lyricism, Clair's interconnected stories celebrate the natural beauty of the Midwest and the dignity and vitality of these most ordinary lives. Rattlebone, winner of the Heartland Prize for fiction, is a tremendous work by a supremely talented writer, now available for the first time in digital form.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Agate Digital
• Release date: Mar 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9781572844834

Maxine Clair

Maxine Clair was born and raised in Kansas City, Kansas. She is the author of the poetry collection Coping with Gravity and the novel The October Suite. On its first publication, in 1994, Rattlebone received both the Literary Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. Clair is a professor emerita at George Washington University.

Reviews for Rattlebone

[jennifyr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Rattlebone is a well written, engaging story about a woman's journey from childhood through adolescence. Maxine Clair captures all the trials and tribulations of the universal stepping stones of growing up - friendships, family, puberty, love and sex. Interspersed throughout are chapters from the point of view of other Rattlebone town members, allowing the reader to get a clearer view of the events around town, especially having to do with the world of adults that so often mirrors the awkwardness and impulsiveness of the children they take care of. Well written, smart and entertaining, Rattlebone is a wonderful novel by a writer that I'm surprised not to have heard of sooner. Taking place during the time period of Brown v. Board of Education in a small town in Kansas, it gives a look into the mind of a town that is just trying to survive in life in all that it encompasses - love, grief, temptation, struggle, and the meaning of family and self.