Whistle: A Novel [Hardcover]

Janice Daugharty (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 17, 1998

Roper is illiterate. He is a poor, hard-working black man in the unforgiving heart of south Georgia, striving each day to put distance between his new life and his probation for a petty crime one year earlier. His routine is his savior: At sunrise he mounts the tractor belonging to Math Taylor, a prominent white landowner, and grooms the vast grounds of the Taylor home -- until one morning, when Roper's routine goes terribly wrong. While mowing the tall grass at the back end of the property, he comes across the body of his boss' wife, dead of a heart attack. In a moment of panic, terrified that he'll be blamed for her death and sent back to jail, Roper hides her body where it will not be found.

With the ensuing days and weeks comes a painstaking and fruitless search for the missing woman. The police want to interview Roper, to ask him if he happened to see Lora Taylor before her mysterious disappearance. After all, wasn't he running the tractor around the time she vanished?

Now Roper is not sure he did the right thing. He should have called for help. And there is no way he can come forward at this point. As the investigation begins and the tragedy hits the evening news, Roper is nearly crippled with self-induced fear and paranoia.

A gritty novel of suspense, Whistle is a powerful departure for acclaimed southern novelist Janice Daugharty. Masterfully weaving the fears of a desperate man with the stark lives of those around him, Daugharty creates a landscape of profound questions and moral quandary. Whistle is Daugharty's most evocative and ambitious novel to date.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Roper Rackard is a Georgia black man with a sharecropper temperament. When he discovers the body of his boss's wife while cutting hay, fear motivates him to dispose of the corpse, even though he is innocent of any wrongdoing. Recognizing her son's unease and guessing its cause, Mama Lou manipulates the situation to force Roper to take responsibility for himself and his family. Daugharty (Earl in the Yellow Shirt, LJ 5/15/97) has done a masterly job of mixing bravado, indifference, paranoia, and panic into Roper's character. In addition, she delicately stirs in hints of the early Civil Rights Movement, memories of Freedom Riders, and a healthy serving of fantasy to round out her too-easily-resolved story. A reader may finish this book wishing that Daugharty had captured the essence of the Southern black experience as well as she has created the multifaceted character of Roper. For literary fiction collections.?Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Southerner Daugharty tells the tale of an uneducated, hardworking black man, Roper, who is terrified he'll be sent to jail for a murder he didn't commit. The story is narrated by Roper as events are seen through his eyes. On probation for a petty crime and working for a white family, he one day stumbles across the body of his boss' wife, dead of a heart attack. Frightened that he'll be accused of her murder, he hides her body in a deep well. As the days and weeks pass and the search for the dead woman intensifies, Roper finds himself overcome with guilt and anxiety; while the story line and Roper's fate continue to spiral to an inevitable conclusion, several smaller story lines and surprise plot twists are thrown into the mix. Daugharty, whose previous works have attracted national acclaim, does a great job of slowly building suspense and tension, and the well-developed characters, hard truths, and skillful writing combine to create an interesting, thoughtful, and enjoyable read. Kathleen Hughes

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1st edition (February 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060175516
• ISBN-13: 978-0060175511
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,565,427 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

See www.janicedaugharty.com for sample writings and more on me.

One morning, I expect to wake up to breakfast in bed--served by Amazon/Kindle. They do everything else for authors with more and more happening all the time.

I've been writing for about thirty years but publishing only about twenty years. Slow starter, that's me! Now, in my later years, I find myself having to ostensibly start over: I'm trying to find my way in a virtual publishing world, after so many years of print publishing only. If I thought my little place was isolated before, it's even more isolated now that I'm tied to my computer. I like it though, very much. I especailly like the freedom of quick, uncomplicated publishing through Kindle on Amazon. Compare having to mail copies of manuscripts to an agent, waiting, waiting, waiting for her to get back to me, then waiting again for some editor to accept or reject one of my novels, so on and so forth. You get the picture. Lately I've been clicking on to the digital platform and uploading precious manuscripts--most written during those other long waits--that I thought I'd never see in print.

Thankfully, I now have a print publisher too--Belle Bridge Books--who has done an amazing job with my last two novels. Both best-sellers in the Kindle Store! The titles are "The Little Known" and "Heir To The Everlasting." We're hoping soon to add the prequel to "Heir..." in ebook format. My e-novel,"A Righteous Wind," is briefly posted for free on Kindle, with almost 15,000 downloads in the US alone (for more titles by Janice Daugharty, see my author's page--almost 100 novels, short stories and essays to pick from).

I write a lot; I write too much, maybe. But now I'm glad I've spent all those hours writing. I'm an excellent typist too.

See my old typewriter with a spool ribbon I used to have to manually re-ink at Valdosta State University archives, Odum Library. Love my fans, Janice Daugharty, writer in residence at Abraham Baldwin Agriculture College, in Tifton, Georgia

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Daugharty examines racism from an entirely new viewpoint., April 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Whistle: A Novel (Hardcover)

Can a black man be prejudiced against other black men? Apparently so. But it does no good to call him a racist, because he knows of which he speaks. The more valuable tactic would be to look at his evidence, and see what can be done to change it. That's what Janice Daugharty has done in Whistle, and while armchair liberals might not like it, open-minded readers willing to stretch their minds and challenge their ideologies will find a tale so packed with hope and sadness that there's hardly room for plot. Daugharty has spent years perfecting her ability to depict the peculiar quirkiness of rural Southern living. She spins characters complex in their simplicity. Until now, though, the strength of her novels has been their unique storylines, and the genuine affection she builds for her characters. Whistle has all that and more. Written from the perspective of Roper, a poor black man on parole after serving time for drug-dealing, this novel is her most ambitious, and she has created a story so fraught with a mixture of anticipation and grief that it leaves unsuspecting readers exhausted. Roper is built on a foundation of ugly stereotypes. He's lazy and thoughtless, the father of two boys he rarely sees and frankly doesn't even like. He steals. Even his mother, Louise, finds him shameful. His mother holds her sad little family together with a thin glue of homecooked meals and love that seems more habitual than genuine. But she hits her boiling point when she realizes her community is spiraling downhill toward self-destruction at a frightening rate. Daugharty's writing style doesn't make Whistle a quick read, but that's part of its beauty. Her prose sometimes contains the choppy inconsistency of sharp, changing images; other times, her descriptions are so vivid and full that her birds sing out loud and her rain wets the pages. The plot of this book gets laid out on page one, but the mystery continues through the very last page. It's a book about family and failure, and about reshaping fate. It's about the saddest sort of happiness imagineable, a slim sliver of hope and justice in a world where the sun's illuminating rays can be the darkest kind of light.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A poignant story of life in the South, March 23, 1999

By 

Margaret A. Levings (North Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Whistle: A Novel (Hardcover)

One of the best southern authors of our time! Janice Daugharty's WHISTLE will keep you in suspense until the end. Two families struggle with a tragedy that brings them together in a way they have never known before. Intertwined in this struggle are family secrets, paranoia and the desire to do the right thing. This is a poignant story of life in the South, well depicted by Ms. Daugharty and experienced by those of us who have lived here. Put this book at the top of your reading list. Also, if you ever get a chance to meet Ms. Daugharty at a book signing, GO! She is bright, charming, witty, a fine storyteller and has a deep appreciation for her fans.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Skip Over Daugharty's Novels: Boring, Boring, BORING, July 16, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Whistle: A Novel (Hardcover)

WHISTLE is flatly unreadable. My book club read Earl in the Yellow Shirt, and not a single member could finish it. As in Whistle, the dialogue was cliched, the characters were one dimensional, the plot shop-worn and predictable. It makes you wonder how bad books get published. I like to give authors a second chance (and I tried with Whistle) but it was dry as Georgia dust.

We won't be reading any Daugharty books in the future and wish someone could have warned us.

Southern fiction has had a tremendous revival; no one should have to be force fed any terrible books. There are too many excellent ones out there.