Out of the Night That Covers Me [Paperback]

Pat Cunningham Devoto (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2001

John McMillan was only eight years old when his mother died and he was ripped, without warning, from his sheltered world of books and gentility. Now on his aunt's run-down tenant farm in southern Alabama, abused by his alcoholic uncle, and completely bereft, John longs for escape--his only hope for survival. He's about to get his wish in a way no one could ever predict....A twist of fate will bring John to the Bend, a black settlement that has become a refuge for outcasts, where he'll join Tuway, a black man who helps others leave the South and find a new life in Chicago. But neither will be ready for the brutal confrontation about to change their lives, challenge the prejudice of an era, inspire the courage of a people, and most of all, touchingly reveal the secrets of one boy's heart.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Out of the Night That Covers Me takes place a decade before the civil rights movement, but the spirit of the coming upheaval hangs over its pages as heavily as the humidity of an Alabama summer. Pat Cunningham Devoto's second novel revolves around two characters: John McMillan, a precocious, sheltered 8-year-old sent to live with poor relations after his mother's death, and Tuway, an African American with a foot in both the black and white worlds. Their stories intersect when the powerful Judge Vance takes an interest in John. He brings the boy to work at the Planters and Merchants Bank of Lower Peach Tree, where the mysteriously disfigured Tuway acts as his assistant. The judge, we soon learn, is no judge at all. Instead, his title is an allusion to his economic omnipotence: "He the one says if you get a crop loan or not. Round here, if you gets a crop loan, you can make it, and if you don't, you might just as well go on off down the road."

A suspiciously large number of black families have done just that, defaulting on debts and fleeing Alabama's cotton fields for the factories of Chicago. But who provides the money and means for their flight? As John learns more about the financial and political intrigues of Lower Peach Tree, he dreams of making his own escape from his abusive new family. The events that follow forge an unlikely alliance between the silent, wounded black man and the equally wounded orphan--and test their courage in unexpected ways.

As skillfully as Devoto evokes time and place, her novel is not without flaws. John's voice, for example, tends toward the irritatingly precious, and the writing sometimes falls flat. Yet the author movingly portrays the ways poverty can both pinch lives into meanness (witness the case of John's alcoholic Uncle Luther) and challenge people to face their problems together, as in the all-black community known as the Bend. If this juxtaposition of violence and cooperation seems a little, well, black and white, that's part of the book's charm; its moral sureties belong to a time when good and evil were as easy to distinguish in life as they are in fiction. --Chloe Byrne --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

This affecting Southern coming-of-age novel continues the story of John McMillan, the bright but overprotected eight-year-old boy introduced, in a minor role, in Devoto's debut novel (My Last Days as Roy Rogers). When his widowed mother dies in the mid-1950s, John is taken by her sister, his Aunt Nelda Spraig, from his comfortable home in northern Alabama to the small town of Lower Peach Tree in Alabama's Black Belt. There he is shocked to learn that Nelda and her family live in a dog-trot house, with no indoor plumbing or electricity. John suffers the brutality of his alcoholic Uncle Luther, who forces him to hoe cotton under a hot sun until his eyes swell shut and his skin blisters, who sells off all of the boy's family possessions and whips him with a belt. John's spirits begin to lift, however, when he is taken under the wing of kindly "Judge" Bryon Vance. The president of the local bank, the Judge makes reasonable crop loans to sharecroppers, thus incurring the enmity of the white landowners. Working as an office and yard boy for the blind Judge, John learns that "the coloreds" are slipping out of town, reportedly headed for Chicago. But how do they manage to leave, since they don't have money for train fare and don't own automobiles? The solution to the mystery seems to lie with Tuway, the Judge's awe-inspiring black right-hand man and general factotum whose life becomes interwoven with John's. Devoto's narrative voice is sometimes awkward; factual details (historical, geographic and agricultural) often feel stuffed into the story. Moreover, we seem to have met these characters before in To Kill a Mockingbird and other classics of Southern literature. Their familiar story is a haunting one, however; part of the fabric of American life, it bears frequent retelling. (Jan. 4)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 436 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books; G edition (December 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446678023
• ISBN-13: 978-0446678025
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #267,827 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The author was born and raised in Florence, Alabama, graduated from the University of Tennessee with a BS in Secondary Education, attended graduate school at Georgia State University. She lives now in Atlanta and Alabama. For more information go to: patcunninghamdevoto.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A poignant drama, January 2, 2001

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Out of the Night That Covers Me (Paperback)

In 1950s Bainbridge, Alabama, eight-year-old John McMillan suffers the devastating loss of his beloved mother when she suddenly dies. Some might have considered John a mama's boy because of how close he was to her, especially since his father was already dead. John's Aunt Nelda brings him to her home in Lower Peach Tree in Alabama's Black Belt. However, John is shocked by the living conditions where there is no indoor plumbing or electricity. Even worse is the treatment John receives from Uncle Luther, who makes him slave outdoors all day, sells his last connections to his mom, and simply beats him at any moment.

John meets Judge Vance, president of the Planters and Merchants Bank Lower Peach Tree, who makes reasonable loans to the local "colored" community. His actions leave white landowners outraged. While working assorted jobs for the Judge, John discovers that "the coloreds" are moving in large numbers to the northern cities, especially Chicago. John wonders how the dirt poor colored are paying their way, but believes somehow that Tuway, the Judge's right-hand man, is accomplishing the impossible feat.

OUT OF THE NIGHT COVERS ME is an insightful, well-written coming of age novel that brings to life 1950s rural Alabama just before the Civil Rights push. John is an interesting character who struggles along. The support cast provide a vivid look at a bygone era, though Pat Cunningham Devoto overkills the historical elements. Still this tale and its predecessor (MY LAST DAYS AS ROY ROGERS) will provide much enjoyment to those readers who relish Southern tales like TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

Harriet Klausner

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars powerful, moving harbinger of civil rights movement, September 1, 2001

By 

Bruce J. Wasser (Lake Bluff, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Out of the Night That Covers Me (Paperback)

In her stirring debut novel, "My Last Days as Roy Rogers," Pat Cunningham Devoto gave evidence that she was on the verge of giving voice to an extremely compelling period in our national history, the decade immediately following the end of World War II. Devoto's focus on the onset of the civil rights movement, as witnessed through the lives of poor, rural Southerners, Black and white, described the turmoil of racial injustice, class friction and personal autonomy in a compelling narrative voice. Her second novel, "Out of the Night that Covers Me" is an exceptional work, one written with rare compassion, special insight into the eternal struggle for personal integrity, and convincing accuracy about the impact of racism on the lives of members of an isolated rural Southern community. The novel has been favorably compared to "To Kill a Mockingbird" and deserves that praise.

Spindly John McMillan, whose secure, urbane life with his widowed mohter abruptly ends with her premature death, emerges as one of the most beloved youthful protagonists of Southern literature. Suffused with a quiet suffering, he comes to live with his repressed and avaricious Aunt Nelda and her brutally vicious husband, Luther. Devoto spares little detail as she describes John's descent into the hellishly collapsed environment of his new sharecropping home. Ignorant, bound by poverty and tradition, and hopeless, the Spraig family is the antithesis of what he has envisioned for his life. That sudden reversal of fortune, the agonizing realization that brutality and stunted aspirations will be his lot in life create an enormous empathy for the protagnoist.

Although brilliant characterizations abound in "Out of the Night," the novel gains its power from a narrative that grabs the reader and refuses to relinquish its grasp until the inexorable and terrifying conclusion permits the reader to understand the path John will lead in his adult life. John's quest for understanding -- his life, his new family, his relationship with African-Americans -- and his absolute strength in confronting pain, humiliation and injustice receive comprehensive scrutiny.

Readers will also be impressed by the author's subtle use of symbolism. Each of the most admirable characters in "Out of the Night" are physically or emotionally flawed; yet it is the very disfiguration which presentes each character with unique beauty and dignity. The Judge, a solitary compassionate white man whose vision of racial degradation forces him to treat African-Americans with financial dignity in his role as a bank chairman, is blind. Tuway, an African-American whose unique skin coloration has led to his ability to bridge disparate worlds, overcomes ostracism to emerge as a genuine leader. John, whose skin literally falls off his body after his grisly initiation into the life of a sharecropper, toughens his body but opens his soul to the possibility (and only a possibility) of racial amity.

The reputation of Pat Cunningham Devoto will grow as she crafts more novels which treat the crucial issues of racial justice and personal self-determination. "Out of the Night that Covers Me" should become one of our national literary staples, a book which, when read by families or shared in classrooms, will become one of those shared experiences which illuminate and educate.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Troubling, but Beautiful Book, September 25, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Out of the Night That Covers Me (Paperback)

This book is a study of contrasts. It is, at the same time, troubling to read because of the violence and depravity that it so well depicts and lovely because of the human qualities it illustrates. John, raised in a privileged home, finds himself orphaned and in the care of his white trash relatives who are tennant farmers in rural south Alabama. The change in his life is shocking...but the way he adapts is touchingly beautiful. John's friendship with the Judge is another strong theme -- his tie to the life he used to know, and more. His life at "the Bend" with the runaway blacks teaches him lessons about tolerance and teamwork, and his respect for Tuway, the odd and mysterious black man who can cross the line into the white man's world so easily is well described. The author writes convincingly of the region, the people, and the history. She has a beautiful style that is easy to read, and yet impressive for its control and mastery of language. This coming-of-age novel could someday rank beside "To Kill a Mockingbird" as one of Alabama's best offerings to literature. It's a book that's truly hard to put down.