Deed So by Kath Russell
Publisher: CreateSpace
Publish Date: November 18, 2010
Paperback, 438 pages
Fiction, Historical
ISBN: 978-1453775035
*** My review will be coming later today. ***
About Kath Russell
Kath
Russell enjoyed over thirty-five years in marketing and communications
management in the biotechnology industry. She was an executive with one
of the first genetic engineering companies. Russell also was president
of Russell-Welsh Strategic Life Science Communications, Inc., and
founder and chief executive officer of an ecommerce company offering
services for mature companion animals and veterinarians. Russell
received her bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University, her
master’s degree in journalism from Boston University, her master’s of
business administration from the Kellogg School of Management, and
earned her certificate in creative writing from the UCLA Extension
Writers’ Program.
To find out more about Kath or to learn more about
Deed So visit
http://www.deedsonovel.com or
http://russellwrites.blogspot.com.
About Deed So
Welcome
to 1962, one year before the world would witness President John F.
Kennedy assassinated, and a time before civil rights, women’s rights,
and the Vietnam War changed everything. Deed So by Katharine Russell
chronicles the coming-of-age of brainy twelve-year-old Haddie Bashford, a
sensitive young girl who wants nothing more than to leave the
close-minded world of her home in Wicomico Corners. When Haddie
witnesses the killing of a black teen by a down-on-his-luck white
farmer, her family becomes embroiled in a web of hatred that threatens
to engulf the whole town. Tempers flare and prejudice heats to a boiling
point, even as Haddie struggles to fully comprehend what is going on,
especially the dark consequences within her own family. When the murder
case goes to trial, neighbor is pitted against neighbor, and the
violence escalates to a dangerous level. As the case drags on, arson
erupts, paralyzing the community. Can the town—and Haddie—survive?
Intertwining the major themes of struggle, equality, loyalty, and love that defined a generation,
Deed So
is a provocative snapshot of a tense time in history. Filled with
larger-than-life characters, pitch perfect dialogue, and a wonderful
sense of history,
Deed So is as moving as it is thrilling. Haunting, edgy, and thought-provoking, this is a perfect read for fans of
To Kill a Mockingbird or Nicholas Sparks.
Book Excerpt
Chapter 1
I was a waitress for Christ. Recruited into the legions of church supper
servers, who answered the call across the South every fall, I reported
to our parish hall and delivered platter upon steaming platter of
artery-choking victuals to appreciative suspender-slapping locals and
city folk who came down in sleek motor coaches. I started when I was
six. Child labor laws could not stand up to the will of Dixie’s God.
We were Episcopalians and our specialties, offered for generations at
our fall festival, were old ham, fried oysters and beaten biscuits. The
Methodists did fried chicken and double-crust peach pie. The Catholics
were famous for fried perch, new potato salad and deviled eggs. I do not
know what the Baptists served because I was a white girl not allowed to
go to their church suppers.
In Wicomico Corners, everybody knew everybody. Heck, you only needed to
go up three rungs on your family tree to claim relation to half the
county. People attended the same church their great-grandfathers had and
dealt at the same general store. The county boasted two stoplights, one
near the courthouse across from the war memorial and one at the main
gate of the navy base. Doors were left unlocked. Chickens, dogs,
children and the occasional escaped milk cow ran free.
This is the story of the year I graduated from Calvert Elementary,
entered Chesapeake High, and nearly died. Chesapeake was a grade seven
through twelve institution. In those days, Boards of Education
approached schooling as one big swimming lesson: when you completed
grade school, they threw you directly into high school, the social and
sexual deep end, and you sank or swam under the predatory eye of upper
classmen.
My name is Agnes Hayden Bashford, but since my great aunt Agnes was very
much alive and using her moniker back then, everybody called me Haddie.
I was twelve and a half and the brightest girl in my class. It was 1962
and the high school opened a new wing to accommodate the spit-polished
offspring of the WWII victors. We were not yet called boomers, nor were
we aware of our economic power or any other peculiar qualities apart
from our ability to duck and cover. My father, a naval aviator during
the war, instructed me in leadership, ham radio operation and ramrod
posture, although my erect stature was impaired at the time by an
ill-fitting training bra handed down from a cousin.
That summer I took catechism in the kitchen of the parish hall. Our
class consisted of four of my cousins, the daughter of the head of the
Altar Guild (to whom I was distantly related) and one black kid, Tiny
Barber. Parishioners called Tiny the diocesan guinea pig, because he was
the first in our parish to participate in an integrated catechism
class. Chances are, I was related to Tiny too, but this was a subject
discussed rarely by adults and only in whispers.
A precocious child, I fired questions at Reverend Harrison during those
catechism lessons. For example, when Eve bit that apple and discovered
Adam’s nakedness and a bunch of other skinny she was not supposed to
know, God considered her act so disobedient she deserved banishment. My
beef was this: If the incident was so terrible wasn’t Eden changed by
her behavior? How could the place be the same with the principal
residents shamed and in exile?
As far as I could see, the garden of perfection was as tainted as our
vegetable patch the year of the blight. Paradise with a crack, a damaged
porcelain plate pushed to the back of the china cabinet. Because I was
an Eve apologist, I pointed out that flaws might make Eden more fun and a
heck of a lot more exciting than Wicomico Corners. It was the only time
I ever recall Reverend Harrison reduced to speechlessness. Despite my
heretical postulations, I passed ecclesiastical muster and earned the
right to sip wine every Sunday. I was almost an adult.
Our rural county slumbered on through that last peaceable summer, its
population still just a hair over the headcount it boasted during the
American Revolution, but change was coming. Not just the building of new
schools for the science project generation. Not just the clamour for
the new stoplight at Helena to slow down the big rigs from up north.
Change was disturbing the stately trees and chasing the ebbing tide. We
sensed it stalking us, all sinew and ferocity poised on big cat’s paws,
and believed it would saunter down our claustrophobic peninsula from the
grand national beyond, trapping us between our two salty, unforgiving
rivers. We did not see it crouching, claws sheathed, eyes slanted,
waiting for its moment, in our own hearts.
Chapter 2
Our church supper was well underway when I saw Gideon Albright for the
first time in over a year. We had filled the tables in the parish hall
basement twice over by the time he arrived. I paused with a platter of
fried oysters in one hand and bowl of fatback-flavored green beans in
the other as I drank in the sight of him. Gideon’s olive army slacks and
khaki shirt set off his tanned skin and shoe-black hair, grown out
slightly from its martial buzz cut. My old chess-playing pal was a man
now.
Sarah Jane elbowed me in the spine as she sidled by juggling three
baskets of biscuits. “What are ya waiting for? Hades to freeze over? You
drop those oysters, you’ll get what for.”
I walked forward and placed the food on one of my assigned tables.
“Haddie, we’re outta ham down here.” Delbert Parsons pointed at the
empty platter with a half-eaten biscuit that dripped melted butter on
his double-wide fingers.
“Yes, sir. Right away.” I leaned over Mrs. Parsons and retrieved the plate.
The All Saints parish hall would not be air-conditioned until 1975. The
scent of perspiration mingled with talc wafted up from Mrs. Parson’s
person, but could not cover the smell of her husband’s musty,
sweat-stained and ancient Sunday-go-to-meeting suit.
Sailing back to the pickup window where platters of steaming food were
lined up neater than our high school marching band, I passed close to my
father, who was pouring boiling water from one part of the coffee and
tea machine to the other. Because he was an engineer, Dad was steward of
the ancient, temperamental contraption. He was the only person able to
keep the thing functioning.
“Dad, Gideon’s home.”
“Glad to hear it. Don’t get too close; the tea canister is threatening to boil over.”
I grabbed a plate of old ham and a heaping dish of fried oysters,
twirled on my sneakers and headed for the aisle, hoping Mr. Maxwell, our
official seater, would place Gideon in my section.
As I handed Mr. Parsons the ham, Mr. Maxwell gestured to Gideon,
indicating an empty seat at one of Jessie Mae Bell’s tables. I waved,
but neither Gideon nor our majordomo acknowledged me. How could Gideon
even see me with the crush of people slapping the hero come home on the
back? A determined patron yanked the oysters away from me.
Gideon was six years older than I was, but we had spent plenty of time
together growing up. His home was one farm over, and he liked to take
advantage of my parents’ prodigious book collection. Besides, he enjoyed
playing chess, and I was the only kid for miles who knew how to play.
Unless it was the weekend and a grownup was free, he was stuck with me.
He didn’t complain too much. I was good, even beat him on occasion.
I longed to welcome him home and hear about the places he had been. As
soon as I was able, I intended to leave Wicomico Corners, our impossibly
boring, backward village, just as Gideon had done. He had been to
Vietnam, a place I looked up on our atlas. I had a time finding it
because people in the Corners called it “Veetnomb rhymes with bomb.”
“Missy, we sure could use some more of them oysters.” I turned to the
stranger tugging at my apron. He was as round as a rain barrel with a
neck the diameter of a basketball.
“Be right back, sir.” Walking toward the kitchen, I stole a glance at
Gideon over my shoulder. He rose to shake another hand, his napkin
balled in his left fist. My throat caught and my cheeks great warm. I
was conscious of my ill-fitting hand-me-down black skirt and frayed
white blouse, a drab contrast with the festive clothing of the diners.
“Watch out, clumsy!”
I turned and was nose to chin number three of Miss Thelma Bridges’ abundant prow.
“Sorry, Miss Thelma.” I danced around her, brushing the large handbag
dangling from her arm. Everybody knew she shoveled ham into her purse.
Such behavior was strictly forbidden by the all-you-can-eat rules of
Southern church supper protocol, but Reverend Harrison never stopped
her. I guess he figured, the good Lord would put a halt to it soon
enough, her being eighty-eight and all.
Sarah Jane Jarboe and I arrived at the pass-through counter at the same time.
“He sent me a postcard from Saigon.” I blushed the minute I said it.
“What?” Sarah Jane pushed golden bangs away from her perspiring forehead. “Oh, you mean Gideon.”
“It’s the capital of South Vietnam. That’s where they sent him.”
“Good thing, since he’s a Southerner.” Sarah Jane turned and wedged her
way through a crush of waitresses muscling toward the counter.
Sarah Jane did not care a hoot for geography; if it wasn’t on a 45-rpm
record, my friend didn’t pay it much mind. I grasped two plates, edged
out of the way and swung toward the dining area. After depositing the
food, I popped out the screen door onto the landing for a little fresh
air.
On the crest of the rise, I spotted Uncle Hayden directing cars into
wavy columns on the parish hall lawn with the assurance of a catapult
officer on a carrier deck. Hayden Kent was not my uncle but rather my
double first cousin, what you get when a sister and brother marry a
brother and sister. Since he was my father’s age and possessed the same
heredity as an uncle, it was easier to call him that.
The lot was almost full, tour buses blocked my view of the rectory, but I
could see the line of waiting diners snaking along the shady side of
the hall. In reaction to the unseasonable warmth of this October day,
the men shed their jackets, and someone had brought fans from our ample
supply donated by local funeral homes and distributed them to the
ladies. I hoped Dad’s tea-brewing apparatus was holding up, because the
iced beverage was going to be much in demand. We had our work cut out
for us.
I returned to the interior and peeped through the back entrance to the
kitchen. Cleo, the Maddox’s Negro housekeeper, sat under a ceiling fan
patting oysters, her bosom undulating as she tossed the encrusted
bivalves from palm to expert palm. My mother, auburn hair pulled back in
a net, hovered behind her, waiting for Cleo to place one more oyster on
her wax-papered pan before returning to the deep fryer.
Farther down the table Aunt Olivia, Uncle Hayden’s war bride from
London, arranged thin slices of the rich, salty smoke-cured ham known
locally as old ham. The natives were impressed at how quickly Olivia had
mastered the traditional Maryland recipes. She was a bastion of the
parish kitchen, the Sunday school and the Altar Guild. I thought, not
for the first time, what a letdown it must have been to come here for a
magical place like London, but despite my urgings, she rarely spoke of
her home.
I scanned my tables to see what was needed. The nearest was being
cleared by my pimply cousin Lawrence. Beyond Lawrence’s Icabod frame, I
saw Gideon stand and squeeze his way toward the exit. I gasped a bucket
of air. I wanted to sprint to his side, but I knew I could not reach him
before he gained the stairs, and I could not leave my post. Shoulders
drooping, I loaded a tray of glasses and silverware from the idle table.
Balancing the teetering stack, I waltzed toward the dishwashing alcove.
As I deposited my burden, I glanced out the window to the parking area.
Gideon was advancing up the slope toward Uncle Hayden in a determined
fashion.
My uncle held another man by the arm, a stern expression marring his
usually cheerful countenance. One look at the Camels rolled in the
T-shirt sleeve, and I knew it was Farley Dalton. Farley was a classmate
of Gideon’s but had dropped out in tenth grade. He and Gideon had been
friends from childhood, but something happened to Farley when he entered
his teens. My mother said Farley had a difficult home life. His father
worked at odd jobs in construction, and his mother took in laundry. We
saw Mrs. Dalton at Wathen’s General Store from time to time and, when I
was younger, I used to wonder how a woman could get so many bruises from
washing clothes.
Farley turned, staggered, and responded to my uncle. I could not hear
his words, but his sneer and burning eyes told the story. Gideon reached
the two men and took Farley’s other arm. As he removed the beer bottle
from his friend’s hand, he spoke to my uncle. Hayden nodded,
relinquished Farley, and Gideon led his inebriated companion away.
Everybody knew liquor was not allowed, but rules of any kind angered
Farley, as did most things society threw at him. I could just barely
picture the gentle boy whom this surly, glaring apparition had replaced,
the boy who loved fishing and marbles.
“I cleared your front table again,” Lawrence said as he passed me juggling an overloaded tray.
I looked at Mr. Maxwell’s station. The pressing crowd of impatient
diners was as dense as ever. Our parish would do well this year, but my
hope of talking to Gideon today was as dashed as an egg yolk in a bowl
of biscuit batter.
FTC Information:
I received this book from the publisher through Pump Up Your Book Promotions for a honest review. I have Amazon
links on my review pages but I do not make any money from
these because of NC laws. I put them solely for people to
check out the books on a retail site.
Deed So by Katha
rine A. Russell
Posts
