Customer Reviews

Blood Harvest

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A compelling tale told from various POVs, pulling you deeper and deeper into the story as each character reveals more clues to why Nick DeCosta was hanged in the woods near this small New England town. There is a history lesson here, told in such a way, you think that maybe your history teacher forgot to mention a few facts way back when.

Fascinating, too, are the characters you meet in this rural town. Marshal Lawe, the marshal of Peony Springs, short on education, but he makes up for it in orneriness. Then there's Bill Sykes, the wheeler-dealer prosecuting attorney who thinks he can finagle his way into the governor's office by inciting a riot and then being the one to squash it. But that only works if everybody is playing your game.

Of course Jackie Sue, the headstrong young girl who leads men and boys astray and causes her own riot in town, adds heat to this smoldering pot.

But my favorite characters are Chief and Kaw. Chief reminded me of the Mechanical Hound in Fahrenheit 451, except this one is real and has personality. You get inside his head and it's a hoot. Kaw is another off-the-wall character, this time a crow whose speech pattern captures the black heart of that diabolical fowl.

Over all, this was a terrific read.

What drives a New England town in 1928 to lynch a man?

Nick DeCosta embodies the immigrant success story. His skill as a wine grower makes him a fortune as a moonshiner during Prohibition. It puts him at odds with the `shine sales of the MacKay clan, even though he's wed to their wild youngest daughter.

Is that the real reason he is lynched? And why is there a second corpse in the woods?

With this set-up it's hard to know what to expect from this first novel by Brant Randall. What I didn't expect was a stunning, unique story of family feuds and bigotry in small town New England. Or a shocking tale so eloquently told, by not one central point of view character, but nine - all integral to the story and each telling it from their own perspective.

While some might be put off by the first-person narrative from so many different characters, the unusual technique is what makes this book so effective. Randall's style is fluid, mesmerizing, and compelling, lush in history and sparse on setting. He purposely spares detail in the surroundings, placing focus instead on the account of events as told by those who lived them, providing an intimate look into the lives of the townspeople and the dynamics of their relationships. Each voice rings so true to its own nature that you can hear each character putting his/her/its own spin on the retelling of events, fitting a few pieces at a time into the larger puzzle until the complete picture is sitting before you in all its deeply rich - if unsettling - glory. Brant Randall has set the bar high with this superbly crafted debut.

In this historical mystery, Marshall Lawe is a marshall in Peony Springs, located in New England. Marshall Lawe's dialogue starts you on the journey through the events that occurred in Peony Springs, which culminated in the death of Nick DeCosta at the hands of the Klu Klux Klan. The Klan had been after Nick years earlier when he eloped with Mary Elizabeth MacKay. Mary Elizabeth rescued Nick, the couple made it across the county line, and there they stayed.

Mary and Nick had a boy that they named Angus after Mary Elizabeth's father, but the breach between the families never healed. When Angus DeCosta reached the age of fifteen, he decided to cross the county line. Angus showed up at a church social and got in some trouble with Jackie Sue Palmer. Jackie Sue was a wild 13-year-old girl with visions of becoming a movie star.

Angus MacKay, Jackie Sue's cousin, broke up the two who were snuggling and then things went downhill from there. All of the commotion caused by this one incident brought about two trials. One trial was held in the home county of Angus DeCosta and one in the home county of Angus MacKay.

You become acquainted with the local residents thorough their telling of their story. Even Chief, Marshall Lawe's dog, tells his side.

Nick DeCosta is indeed hanged by the Klan. The militia comes in to break up the gathering but Nick is not the only victim in this story.

Brant Randall (a.k.a. Bruce Cook) has written a very interesting and engrossing tale of the times in New England in 1928. I loved all the characters and their stories of happiness and sorrow. Randall tells a complicated story in a way that you feel a kinship with the characters. I was very surprised to learn that the Klan targeted Italians. The Klan was very active in New England in the 1920s. The author revealed facts in our history that were new to me.

Armchair Interviews says: You will be both entertained and educated in this excellent tale.

Brant Randall offers us a look at the events in one small rural New England town through the eyes of seven humans and two animals -- my .5 deduction for the book is because I found the animal viewpoints but unnecessary and disconcerting, pulling away from the emotional content of the over arching portrait of life in 1929.

The actually time period is only two days of time but the events reach back into individual family histories, religious, racial and ethnic intolerance, and the looming financial crisis on the horizon. Heroes are few in this book as characters manipulate each other right and left in their attempts for business and political power.

I really appreciated Randall's details on how people talked, how they thought and how they interacted. It felt historically possible and I could find characters such as Eulala Sprout and Ebeenezer Kauz to sympathize with among the manipulators and abusers. The main character, the one who might be a hero, Marshall Lawe, I just couldn't honestly connect to... he seemed a bit too distant but then he also seemed more honest than many of the characters.

This was an interesting and entertaining novel to read plus it made me think about the past in a slightly more complex way.

Fortunately, a friend recommended the book, as I would have passed on it as too dark for my liking by the tone of the reviews I've read. This book has a sense of humor about the subject matter that makes it easy to digest. Distinct character voices add to the fun. A great read!

This novel is a dark tale of xenophobia and small-town corruption in 1929 Massachusetts. Immigrant Nick DaCosta begins the trouble when he marries Mary Elizabeth MacKay, daughter of the dominant moonshining family of Potemkin County and carries her to a neighboring county. There, the bad will is intensified by Nick competitive moonshine business. So it continues, until the teenaged son of Nick and Mary Elizabeth is caught in the bushes with one of the MacKay girls. The MacKays beat the boy severely and attempt to drown him, the attempt thwarted by Nick and his shotgun. The book opens up on the attempted-murder trial of Angus and Andrew MacKay, a trial interrupted by the gathering of the local Ku Klux Klan, and the lynching of Nick DaCosta.

One of the strengths of this book is in its multiple points of view structure. Many times that is a weakness, and can be confusing, but in this case I think it is the best way to tell the story. There is no danger of confusion, as each character relates his or her view of the events in separate sections or chapters. Each character's take adds to the overall picture in a way that fleshes the story out, and gives the reader a sense of being in the story, listening as first one then another tells it. It worked for me (well, except for the few sections that give us the thoughts of a dog and a crow ... these were not high points of the book).

The idea that the Klan had such a strong presence in New England in those days might be surprising to some, as it is usually thought to be purely Southern. In fact, though, as is pointed out by the author in his note, after its 1915 resurrection, most of the strength of this vile organization was located in the Northeast and Midwest. BLOOD HARVEST, based on an incident told to the author by his grandmother, shows that geography sets no limits on bigotry and prejudice. It is a cautionary tale most relevant today. A good book.

Lynch mobs - a group of people, blinded from logic and reason, seek out and execute a man as a group. What drives people to do this? "Blood Harvest" is the story of a small New England town. As an immigrant is found consensually sleeping with one of the hometown girls he is tossed off a bridge to drown - but his father saves him, only to hung up a few days later himself. When the authorities finally bring order back, they find the body of the wrongfully executed... and another. A deftly written thriller that will keep readers reading, "Blood Harvest" is highly recommended to community library fiction collections.

Blood Harvest was sparked by stories told to author Brant Randall about his grandmother's marriage. Mixed in those remembrances were tales of the KKK's dominance in local politics, moving from a Southern force to a nationwide influence. Randall's grandfather was a Greek immigrant who had worked since the day he arrived on US soil, yet her family hadn't wanted the marriage to happen because he was considered "non-white" and was a Catholic. There was outside influences as well as family trying to stop the union. Bitter about their interferences and implied threats, she left her hometown, never to return. Well into her 90's she still held the Klan in contempt.

Blood Harvest is a fictional account of the events surrounding a trial in a small New England town. The defendant is the son of a prosperous immigrant family. Caught in the bushes with a local girl, he is on trial for fighting back when the girl's family tries to administer their own justice. The people involved narrate the events of the three days in the first person. Each of the players has a voice; some are very unsavory, some resigned, some always plotting to advance. Local law enforcement is partially corrupted by the local Klan. The "victim" of the young man is actually an enterprising young woman who is discovering the power her developing chest and willingness has over some men. The forces clash in the three days covered until a final violent night and some survive and go on. Some are silenced. Some get their much-deserved rewards. Some voices are so unusual (preposterous) that I found their storylines hard to follow. I would have liked to have followed some of the main characters more and cut out some of the lesser characters. Randall indicates that he could not use some of the Klan history he discovered because it would be too hard to believe. I found the whole story a bit to difficult to follow, not just because of content, but delivery as well.

BLOOD HARVEST by Brant Randall - Blood Harvest is reminiscent of To Kill A Mockingbird. It's a chilling tale of the hatred, racism, and violence spread by the Ku Klux Klan, not in the South, but in New England in the early part of the last century. It's the story of two rival bootlegging families--related by marriage but separated by prejudice. What makes this book a pleasure to read, and to re-read, is Randall's unique voice. Blood Harvest is well plotted and its writing fresh, but characters and dialog sell this one.

Reading some of the other reviews of this book I am convinced there was a good story somewhere in this book. I had a lot of trouble with it. My difficulty started with the first section that is narrated by Marshall Lowe (Ichobod or Icky is his actual name). Icky writes with a heavy southern drawl (even though this is supposed to take place in the Northeast) and basically uses the vocabulary of a hillbilly making it very difficult to understand. A teenager from mixed parents is caught by a girl's cousins, making advances to the girl. They are enraged by the boy's behavior and try to teach him a lesson by dropping him off a bridge, almost killing him. The boys are then shot at by the boy's father who later is himself found hanged.

The second part of the book is narrated by a woman and I was not convinced that the narrator was a woman so it was again difficult to follow.

The whole story takes place in just over a few days and the author states that is was based on a true happening that was related to him by his grandmother. It was interesting because I was not aware of any KKK doings in the Northeast but I could not give the book a higher rating because of the difficult writing style of the author.