Customer Reviews

A Cry of Absence (Voices of the South)

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With his customary skill and craft, Jones weaves a powerful and unforgettable story of racial tension in the New South.

A young black man is brutally murdered in a small Tennessee town. The novel's protagonist, Hester Glenn, slowly comes to realize that her younger son, whom she regards as a paragon of Southern male virtue, may be involved in the killing. Amidst the growing evidence of his guilt, Hester fights to clear his name and that of her family and community.

One reviewer of A CRY OF ABSENCE has likened the novel to a Greek tragedy. Hester is a tragic figure, blinded by pride, and like all tragic figures, she must accept a tragic fate for her actions. Although a conservative Southerner himself, Jones takes no sides. He's as critical of Hester as he is the busy body liberals who set themselves up in the town as the guardians of virtue.

This is a masterful novel,a literary work that moves with the pulse of a thriller, one that has been sorely overlooked since its initial publication in the early 70's. It is long overdue its share of acclaim.

It is amazing how much better this book has gotten from the time I first read it in 1971 as a 25 year-old to 2006 when I read it as a 60 year-old. The words, of course are the same; it is I, the reader, who has changed, more mature, more experienced, more understanding, more humane. A good book, a very good book in the genre of "To Kill A Mockingbird." "Mockingbird" has the term "classic" cornered in this genre and rightly so, but "A Cry of Absence" should be in the mix, and near the top. Its characters, those coming of age, those trying to hold on to what they beleive to be dear in the past, and those rushing wrecklessly toward an uncertain, often frightening future are more intimately involved with the tragedy of the story than even in "Mockingbird."

This is not a story they are "aware" of. It is the tragic story of their lives. There is no Attitus Fince here, but there is an equally memorable, perhaps a more human character, a character more torn apart by the distructivness of the times, more like most good, well-meaning but misunderstanding and misunderstood Southerners of that tiome. Attitus Finch was a brave man, standing up for what was right; Hester Glenn is a woman whose life comes unraveled during those times. She is a memorable character symbolic of many good people who didn't understand and couldln't handle the changing of the times. A clash of two perceived "rights," movingly and effectively written. Hester Glenn has two sons, Ames, moving however grudgingly into th e"New South," and Cam, holding on to the Old and Never-Was South. Something had to give and this book is the story of what gave. Perhaps a little too much discription at times, even to the point of detracting from the narrative, but still a good read, a movingly effective read that becomes more apprecited with the perspective of years, age and experience. As is said--or was said--in the Old South, "Madison done good..." Very good.

Available through the LSU Press in Baton Rouge.

This is, without a doubt, the best treatment of race relations during the Civil Rights era by any author, black or white. One factor of this novel that I found particularly intriguing was the contrast between the civilized, semi-aristocratic family portrayed in the book and the "white trash" and transplanted northerners in their midst. Overall, an underrated classic.

This exceptional novel recalled, to me, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and stories by Flannery O'Connor, other books by Southern authors who have made very fine works of literature from the South for all thoughtful readers.