In a world that seems to be moving backwards, with the rise of the far right in the US and here in the UK, this is a pertinent novel. We kid ourselves that we’ve moved so far, that we have achieved equality, but the prejudice and discrimination written here is unfortunately only too real almost a hundred years later.
Sharecropper’s daughter Elma gives birth to twins – one light-skinned, one dark. Not surprisingly, this garners a great deal of interest, and gossip, and the result is that field hand Genus, deemed to have raped Elma, is lynched.
But there’s more to the twins’ conception and birth than meets the eye. And Elma, her father Juke, and housekeeper Nan find themselves entangled in a web of lies and deceit.
The writing is so evocative – 1930’s Georgia is brought to life with a confident yet careful touch. The little details of everyday life really help set the scene and the poverty, the frustration and the dreadful unfairness are portrayed not always through dramatic events and tragedies, but through the every day constraints, degradation and brutality that one group of people inflict on another.
The narrative shifts viewpoints and we get to know the story from all the main characters which adds a depth to the novel and makes the reader feel involved and invested. Each characters feels real, and authentic, and their actions and reactions, their decisions, their mistakes and their desperation, carry the narrative along.
There are shadows of Harper Lee here, and Carson McCullers and Williams Faulkner – with writing that is sparse at times and as dry and barren as the Georgia fields in drought, at other times vibrant, full of colour and life.
This isn’t a pleasant, happy read. But it is an important one. Like Britain’s history of colonialism, the US has never seemed to really address its past, admit its guilt and make amends. That it isn’t too hard to imagine the events of this book happening still is a sad indictment of how little we’ve progressed. A must read.

Really well-written, atmospheric novel about Cotton County during the Depression.
Not all of the characters were likeable, but what a truthful exposition this was. Interesting and thought-provoking and poignant. I have to say though, not an easy read. I had to put it down quite a few times before I was able to finish it.

Sadly after trying to get into this book three times I gave given up on it. I can't put my finger on why - I wanted to love it.

This was a delightful story with several threads running through, which all joined together seamlessly. Enjoyable characters all of which made the story come to life. One of those books that make you feel light-hearted and happy. Great read.

This book was very much out of my usual g3nre and comfort zone and I think if I had seen it as a real book with hundreds of pages I possibly may not have picked it up - but then I would have not had the pleasure of being gently introduced to some memorable characters and heartbreaking stories. My slight irritation was the jumping around of timelines which took me a while to work out but it was worth it.

I found the book quite slow moving but the subject matter interesting. The way in which the south was very divided on their treatment of people depending on their colour is still relevant today and scary that some of the same practices go on.

During the Great Depression life is hard in Cotton County, Georgia.

In 1930 two babies are born; one light-skinned and the other dark. They are passed off as twins. On the day they are born Genus Jackson is lynched and dragged behind a truck along the Twelve–Mile straight, the road leading to the nearby town.

The family is soon being torn apart by the dark secrets they all share.

Set in the dark days of the depression, this epic story tells of great suffering in the small world of Georgia as the inhabitants try and survive with little money, education and the old ways of the South.

I struggled all the way with this book and had to make myself finish it. The pain the family had to go through is still relevant today, over eighty years later.

The book is superbly written and really gets to your heart and pulls those strings. The lynching was particularly graphic but it only added to the sometimes-barbaric ways of the genteel South.

I am glad I persevered with the book and learned how difficult life was during the depression and the prejudices of a small town, through lack of education and the money of the lucky few used to keep the poor in their place and the coloured people slaves in all but name.

Shesat

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

This telling of inter racial life in a dangerous time in America's history was twisted, cruel and happy. A journey through time for 2 girls who were connected by more than they knew or understood.

Really enjoyed and got engrossed in this story. Found it fascinating. Recommended.

I did enjoy this book, but it was difficult to read at times and took me ages to plow through. A significant disappointment for me was that the ‘secrets’ revealed at the end were obvious very early on in the book.
It is a long, hard read but more than likely so reflective of the time and the place, and for some reason I was compelled to keep reading whereas in other scenarios I would have likely given up.
The writing is compelling, and the characters are hugely involving and well-rounded. It is a historical novel giving a clear and vivid picture of the depression years in the deep south and the attitudes towards race, gender, and class.
Fundamentally, I am not sorry I have read to the book, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend it.
I would like to that NetGalley, HarperCollins UK 4th Estate, and the author Eleanor Henderson for my ARC in return for an honest review.

Twelve-Mile Straight by Eleanor Henderson reminded me of To Kill A Mockingbird because it was less about the crime that occurred and more about race and relationships in a small Southern town.

Florence is a small town in rural Georgia much like any other town and wholly unremarkable until the ‘Gemini twins’ are born - to Elma Jessop is a white sharecroppers daughter.

The birth of the twins causes a scandal in town because one twin is light skinned and one is dark but also because her father, Juke, claims Elma was raped. This claim leads to the lynching of a field hand by the name of Genus Jackson and the unravelling of a whole load of secrets in the house in which the babies were born.

“Genus Jackson was killed in Cotton County, Georgia, on a summer midnight in 1930, when the newborn twins were fast asleep…like two halves of the single eggshell from which they’d hatched. Only if you looked closely – and people did – could you see that the girl was pink as a piglet, and the boy was brown.”

Elma’s fiancé Freddie Wilson, grandson to their landlord George Wilson, is suspicious of Elma’s original claim that it is probably some Indian blood somewhere in her family tree that is showing through. He takes his worries to Elma’s father.

Juke claims that Elma was raped by Genus and Freddie, Juke and three other trucks full of men set out to confront Genus who denies it adamantly to no avail.

“Freddie looped another rope over one of the crossbeams and the noose around Genus’ neck…Genus dropped, his neck snapping like a chicken’s.”

Juke cut the body down but Freddie then decided to parade it through down dragging down the Twelve-Mile Straight behind his truck. He was accompanied by many men that night each of whom swore to be asleep in bed when questioned later.

After the lynching reporters descend on the small mill town interested in both the lynching and in the Gemini Twins. Elma has to learn to struggle with her feelings over her part in the lynching and also to raise the twins without the help of her mother who had herself died in childbirth.

Elma’s one consolation is the presence of her friend Nan. Nan is the daughter of former field hand Sterling and his wife Ketty who was a midwife before he death.

Ketty cut Nan’s tongue out when she was still a small child but despite this Elma and Nan have developed a strong friendship. Part of this friendship developed from Juke allowing Nan to live in ‘the big house’ with them, an action that has lead some in town to label him a ‘nigger lover.’

For Elma, Nan is part of her family. Now that Nan slept in the in the big house – well, if they weren’t sisters, what were they?

How Nan feels about Elma is often a bit more ambiguous, it is clear to the reader that she is comforted by her presence, but she also feels as if she doesn’t really know her and because of her inability to talk there is often cause for the reader to wonder if other characters are projecting thoughts onto her.

“Too often her silence is mistaken for objection. Too often her silence is mistaken for assent.”

I found it difficult to read some of the examples of casual racism in the book let alone the more overt examples. I think that is part of the what makes the book interesting though – it challenges the reader.

I initially found it hard to see why so many people believed that the ‘Gemini twins’ were just that but a passage in the book explains why this was the case.

“They believed that the babies were twins. Because if they didn’t believe, then they didn’t believe Genus Jackson was one of the daddies. They’d have to believe that the daddy was someone else. They’d have to believe that a mob of white men killed a black man for no reason. And they couldn’t believe that.”

This wilful denial was something that occurs continuously in the book and across a variety of topics.

This book took me a fair amount of time to read and was definitely slow going but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. It was nice to read a book that I could take my time with.

The Twelve Mile Straight by Eleanor Henderson is an epic historical novel set in Georgia in 1930. It was reminiscent of John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men in both the style and atmosphere.
Back in the 1930's the deep South continued to be a divide between the white and black Americans. There were lies and lynchings, rapes and violence, and people turning a blind eye everywhere. It is not a comfortable read. It is deeply disturbing.
In contrast there was love and loyalty between two girls... one black and one white.
The reader gets a glimpse of life in rural, dusty Georgia. The atmosphere of cruelty and distrust has been perfectly captured by Eleanor Henderson.
The Twelve Mile Straight is a snapshot in time. I hope we have all learnt from the lessons of the past. Eleanor Henderson has opened eyes to the horrors suffered by the black Americans in the South. It is a brutal story combined with awful elements of truth.
A powerful but disturbing read.
I received this book for free. A favourable review was not required and all views expressed are my own.

This is a brilliant read. It is gruesome and hard to read in places but worth sticking with. There is a lot of pain in this book. I learnt so much about that period in history that I did not know. This book is a must read which will stay with me for a long time.

A difficult book to read and the subject matter is bleak and depressing.

To be honest I don't know how I really feel about this book. Mainly because I found it way too long.
I felt the basic story was well written with racial tensions and segregation in the early 1930's yet I found the different characters a bit too much, especially with all connections.
The deep bond between the two main female characters held the book together as well as the bond they shared with the 'twins'.
Reading other reviews I can see there is a mixed response and I can understand this.

I found this a very hard book to read.
Set in the American south during the depression were racial prejudice was still rife a young girl gives birth to twins. There is one problem though one is white and the other is coloured.
It is assumed that one of the coloured farm hands has defiled her and is killed by her father.
A whole web of lies surrounds the family which is drip fed to the reader as the book progresses.
I found a lot of the issues dealt with in the book hard to swallow and at times made me very uncomfortable.

I struggled to like this book and in the end didn’t really. It’s a genre which I normally love – a historical novel set in the southern USA in the 1930s. The main character is Elma Jessup, daughter of Juke who is a sharecropper and also owns an illegal still producing moonshine.

Elma gives birth to twins – one is white and one is of colour. They’re referred to a Gemini twins. I don’t know if that is a general term for such twins or a term only used on this book as I’d not heard it before. Such twins can happen for many reasons but the citizens of Florence, Cotton County, Georgia were of an era when prejudice was rife and assumed that the twins were from two fathers - Elma’s boyfriend and a black farmworker called Genus. More assumptions were made that Genus must have raped Elma and a lynching was organised by Juke. The repercussions from this carry on for years and the rest of the book which was very long...too long.

I found the relentless violence, aggression, incest, rapes, brutality and prejudice very wearing and I just wanted to finish the book. I’d have preferred it to be written as a straight story with a timeline of the years covered. There was a large middle section which jumped about as the characters were fleshed out. I skipped a lot of this as I was getting bored and would have preferred a more concise filling in of the characters within the story itself.

It wasn’t a pleasant read and my rating it more 2.5 stars between ‘Not really’ and ‘Maybe’.

With thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK, 4th Estate for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Twelve Mile Straight

The blurb from this completely drew me in. This may have been a work of fiction but things like this did actually happen unfortunately. As a mother of two beautiful mixed race children, I am so grateful that on the whole, attitudes have changed in comparison to those found in the book.

Cotton County, Georgia during the great Depression and Prohibition, a young white woman, gives birth to twins. One twin is white and one twin is black...and there the story begins.

This is a harrowing family saga, full of secrets, lies, hatred and love. This powerful story is not a comfortable read but it’s beautifully written. I absolutely loved this book and can not recommend it enough!! Five well deserved stars from purplebookstand.

It took me quite a long time to read this book, partly due to the harrowing nature of many of the events occurring in the text but also because I did not really manage to engage with any of the characters. The premise of the novel is one which I found interesting, dealing as it does with racism and class in America's south in the 1930s. The story jumps backwards and forwards in time to offer the perspectives and realities of the many characters and I found this detracted somewhat from the central plot line which involves two young mothers, one black and one white. I found some of the relationships in the story somewhat improbable and the ending (in the form of an epilogue) a bit too neat. I did appreciate some of the historical medical story both regarding midwifery and also blood testing.

Set in 1930's Georgia, a time of deep depression and prejudice, two babies are born to Ella Jesop; one light skinned the other dark.
This is a vividly drawn description of a family haunted by secrets living in an era of poverty and cruelty. Not an easy book to read because of the subject matter but one which remains with you and should be talked about.