Customer Reviews

Visible Spirits: A Novel

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I completed Visible Spirits (June 8th- a month to the day after its release). The book held my interest, especially since though fictional it was of personal sentiment for me. Had I not known the real story of the Cox episode, I would have been inclined to believe yours. The way you write is quite convincing. Your ability to cross racial lines via the message in Visible Spirits has me awed in that you were able to focus on and express the goings on in a culture which is so divided as it relates to black and white issues yet, you who grew up on the other side of the tracks- have connected mentally and spiritually. I do hope that those who read your book will walk away with the understanding that our past is a part of our present, and that our destiny lies in the hands of each of us, individually and collectively. A house divided cannot stand...perhaps Visible Spirits has come to heal us and bridge race relations in Mississippi, and the world. Keep writing!!!

Visible Spirits is a wonderfully well-written novel with strong characters and a great story. It's 1902 in Loring Mississippi. Tandy Payne has returned to his hometown after running out of money to find that his brother Leighton, editor of the local newspaper, has become mayor of the town. Tandy figures he can use his brother's position to get a job so that he can reclaim the family plantation. He decides that the job for him is postmaster because the current postmistress is a black woman, and he believes that the incipient racism in the town, which he incites, will support his quest. She resigns under pressure, but the president gets involved, seeking to reinstate her. The story is not pretty, but the telling is beautiful. Yarbrough is a fine writer, and while some of his characters are pure evil, most are caught somewhere between good and evil. The situation is difficult, with many people caught between doing what is right, and doing what will help them survive. Visible Spirits is a great American story. Enjoy.

Having grown up in the Deep South, I can attest that even today there is much racism and racial resentment. I have seen it in other places, but I have never lived in another place where it was as much a part of everyday life as drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. I wept because so much of this story rang so true, not only to what I knew of history, but also to what I had seen first-hand.

Tandy Payne, a gambler with no manners (when we first meet him he tracks mud into his brother's office), returns home since he has no money. When he finds out that his brother Leighton is now the mayor, he hopes that Leighton can use his position to get him a nice job. Despite the fact that the position is already filled, Tandy decides he would like to be the postmaster. He manipulates those around him to kindle (or re-kindle) their racists attitudes and get the black postmistress to resign.

As I read, I cried not only for those who were and are the targets of such behavior, but for the perpetrators of it as well. Such ignorance and intolerance is surely a disability and I mourn for those who cannot work past these things to live a life of appreciation for all humanity. I can only hope that we continue to strive to consign such events to history and create a better future.

Set in the racially charged atmosphere of turn-of-the-century Mississippi, Steve Yarbrough's compelling and subtle "Visible Spirits" is a nuanced investigation of the tortured, conflicted relationship between two dissimilar brothers. Secrets, many of them swirling around sexual assault and compulsion, dominate the life of erstwhile Leighton Payne, the conscience-driven mayor and newspaper editor of Loring, a small town which steadfastly refuses to relinquish its past and defiantly adheres to racist principles. Leighton grapples with his family's past, his wife's elusive affections and the sudden reappearance of his reprobate brother, Tandy, whose inability to hold a job is equalled only by his appetite for gambling, deceit and sexual satisfaction. It is not an accident that Leighton uses a cockroach to "author" newspaper columns which admonish the community for its perverse commitments to ignorance, bigotry and hatred. Nor is it an accident that the malevolent Tandy seizes a racist political opportunity to advance his own interests.

The central focus of "Visible Spirits" on the seething antagonism between Leighton and Tandy matches the novelist's perceptive inclusion of a series of fully-realized African-American charactes. Loring's postmistress, Loda, proudly discharges her responsibilities, despite confronting the daily pressures of a culture determined to minimize her and the constant awareness of connection to the Payne family. Her husband, Seaborn Jackson, a diligent insurance salesman, symbolizes not only the development of an African-American bourgeoisie, but the inherent fragility of social mobility in the South for any Black who dared tamper with the social rules of Jim Crow. In turn, their lives quietly rotate around the quietly defiant Blueford, whose single act of rebellion ignites a firestorm of racist reprisal.

"Visible Spirit" gains its intellectual stature from the seemingly insoluble moral problems it dissects. To what degree does a son tolerate or repudiate his father's legacy? How strong are the bonds of brotherhood, and what consequences result from blood ties? What occurs to a man when he discovers he has never fully obtained his wife's affection? What is the cost of racism, both on the victim and the victimizer? What constitutes an act of heroism, an act of resistance, an act of love? Yarbrough is nothing less than brilliant as he steps back from his own writing and permits his characters to wrestle not only with their own lives, but the vexing moral dilemmas they constantly encounter.

This talented, spare novel contains exceptional dialogue, vivid atmosphere, deft description of physical environments and absolutely believable characterization. "Visible Spirit" is also subtle and multi-faceted. It is a novel whose pace gradually accelerates and whose conclusion leaves the reader chastened but thankful. Those concerned about the issues of racial justice and historical responsibility will welcome the addition of this novel to a national dialogue.

VISIBLE SPIRITS is perfect in every way...the writing is strong and polished, the story engaging, the characters compelling and the message dead-on. It's a book about many things--race, brotherhood, finding some measure of balance in life, and there's never a misstep or clumsy moment. A beautiful piece of literature that shouldn't be missed.

This was such a perfect book to read now, when an African American is about to become President in 2009. This story takes place in 1902, 106 years ago, what a long way we have had to come, yet getting here was a dreadful journey.

In the Delta of Mississippi we meet a white family and the small community they live in. The black people of the town still work for the white people as if they were still slaves. Some blacks dare to do more and one got an education and is postmistress of the town. That soon changes when a wayward son of the Payne family returns to town and makes sure to run her out of her job. What ensues from there dredges up a lot of secrets and hurts from the past.

The book is fiction but the story is true as far as the horrific truths of how ignorant people can be, then and even now. It was a good reminder to me of how far we have come yet how slow the process is to become a free and equal nation.

I gave it 4 stars only because I felt it could have been longer and gone into more about the people and times. Still, it packed a punch and is a book I highly recommend.

Visible Spirits is a riveting and moving story of family tensions and racial conflict. It was a deeply sad story focusing on the black spots of human nature and a lesson for us all to not forget. I was drawn into this story from the first page. My only issue was that the final pages seemed rather short and a bit confusing. Otherwise, it was an excellent novel.

Visible Spirits delivers the goods in this tragic tale of the Mississipi Delta, faithful to the way it was, regrettably, when the subjugation of a race knew no bounds and unspeakable acts of inhumanity were accepted as right.

Yarbrough added his research, no doubt, to what he remembers from his childhood experiences. Though it's wrong, he gets it right (historically) ... "it" being the unmitigated malice nourished by so many against a race of people who were kidnapped and yoked to a foreign land.

We read and pull for the brother, Leighton, who sees the light of hope, though we know the brother of wounded darkness, Tandy, will sway too many like-minded citizens of Loring and blood will be shed -- precious and innocent blood. There's nothing we can do but read and agonize over what remains an aching wound in the heart of this country's history.

May God have mercy on us.

So weep for what was done, and remain vigilant against the blackguards who somehow still harbor injurious beliefs against those of different color and remain insensitive to the sacred soul of all humanity.

This is strong stuff, like barely distilled moonshine, and Yarbough serves it in heaping and sickening helpings. Overall, this is a novel that deserves an enduring place in the the tragic legacy of slavery. It tells the tale in tight, fluid prose that marches relentlessly toward what we fear most.

Note: Read my rating as 4.8, given a conclusion that seems less sure-handed than the rest of the work. The resolution moved too swiftly and confused me.

There's history in this book that shapes individual's lives and the place that they live in. The place is deep in the Mississippi delta, a fictitious town named Loring. The town was a wilderness before brothers Leighton and Tandy cleared and tamed the land. Yet, the town has a history separate for each member and from those that established the town. There's a hodgepodge of immigrants and established town folk that live in the town or have started a new life in the town or run from the town or just barely survive in the town. As Seaborn, the black business man who lives in the town tells Leighton, the mayor, "There's not much around here that's not built on one kind of a lie or another".

The characters and their histories are thick and complex and intertwined. The histories are of families, cultures and place all coming together in the only way each of them knows how. The town itself, "got some folks that make a cottonmouth look downright winsome", says a resident who lives outside of the town. The vivid and violent descriptions and name calling may be offensive to some.

This was the first book of southern historical fiction I have read. I became interested in it because I had just returned from a weeklong trip along the Nachtez Trace Parkway - which winds through present day Mississippi. I did get a glimpse or a sense of history and place while visiting and was curious to learn more. This book wet my appetite and I will be on the lookout for other books and stories about this very different world.

The arrival of Tandy Payne, son of the late Sam Payne and brother of Leighton Payne, mayor and owner of the local newspaper, brings the stirrings of uneasiness to the town of Loring. Tandy, an adventurer, gambler and womanizer, is quick to exploit the underlying tensions existing between blacks and whites in 1902 Mississippi. He is determined to reclaim the family's old land and find a way to bring in money, as long as he doesn't have to work too hard. His brother, Leighton is determined to keep Tandy from disrupting the hard won coexistence of Loring's black and white citizens. A perceived slight between Tandy and a black worker in the town's post office provides the opening Tandy needs. He sets off on a course to remove Loda Jackson, the town's postmistress, a black woman whom the Payne boys have known their whole lives. Playing on a generations' feelings of distrust and oppression, Tandy fuels the pent up feelings of the white citizenry and sets off a series of events that eventually involves the federal government, President Teddy Roosevelt and reawakens the memories of past brutalities. Leighton Payne is just as determined to take the moral high ground, and struggles to keep the town from dissolving into chaos and violence. Leighton struggles with a legacy of brutality and violence in his own past, and is trying not only to preserve the town but his own decency.

Steve Yarbrough has exploited the dual sides of human nature and crafts a story of post Civil War unrest and the struggle of two brothers to face their legacy. One embraces it, and finds a type of success. The other strives to remain true to principles ...which may endanger all he loves and cost him his life. Both men must eventually must face the legacy of their father and choose.